LI  1  JK'A  K•^' 

111  1111 

University  of  California. 


<  VI  l-'l"    <  )l- 


TWKNTY-FIFTH    ANNIVERSARY 

OF 

CORNELL    UNIVERSITY 


i868 


1893 


PROCEEDINGS  AND  ADDRESSES 


AT  THE 


TWENTY-FIFTH  ANNIVERSARY 


OF  THE    OPENING   OF 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY 


ITHACA,  N.  Y. 

PUBI,ISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 

1893 


y"   0?  TT-B 

[uiriVBiis 


ssrt¥- 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY 5 

The  Programme 8 

THE   REUNION ii 

THE  ADDRESSES 15 

President  Schurman's  Address 17 

Mr.  Depew's  Oration 18 

Mr.  Woodford's  Address 43 

Chancellor  Upson's  Address 44 

Professor  Caldwell's  Address 55 

Mr.  Hendrix's  Address 64 

Dr.  Smith's  Presentation . 69 

Professor  Wilder's  Response 75 

Professor  Huffcut's   Presentation 77 

THE  DINNER 79 

Ex-President  White's  Telegram 81 

General  Read's  Letter 82 

Professor  Goldwin  Smith's  Letter 83 

The  Toasts 86 

THE  SERMON 89 

Bishop  Doane's  Sermon 91 

The  Service  at  Barnes  Hall 117 


4  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

VIKWS    OF    CORNELL    UNIVERSITY    IN    ITS 

FIRST   QUARTER-CENTURY 119 

Cornell  University  in  1868. 

The  Original  Faculty. 

The  University  from  the  Valley. 

The  Entrance  to  the  Campus. 

South  University  Building  (Morrill  Hall). 
Cornell  University  in  1872. 

The  Campus,  looking  north. 
Cornell  University  in  1878. 

The  Campus,  looking  north. 

The  Campus,  looking  southwest. 
Cornell  University  in    1887. 

The  Campus,  looking  north. 
Cornell  University  in  1893. 

The  Campus,  looking  north. 

The  Campus,  looking  south. 

Sage  College. 

Barnes  Hall. 

The  Armory  (the  Gymnasium) . 

The  University  Library. 


INTRODUCTORY 


((Uin7ER3ITT] 


INTRODUCTORY. 


In  obedience  to  the  provisions  of  its  charter,  Cornell 
University  opened  its  doors  to  students  on  Wednesday,  October 
the  seventh,  1868. 


On  June  i5tli,  1892,  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Univer- 
sity, at  their  annual  meeting  in  Commencement  Week,  adopt- 
ed the  following  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee,  consisting  of  the 
President  of  the  University,  the  Chairman  of  this 
Board,  and  three  members  to  be  named  by  the  Chair- 
man, be  constituted  for  the  purpose  of  arranging  for 
the  appropriate  observation  of  the  twenty-fifth  anni- 
versary of  the  organization  of  Cornell  University, 
with  full  authority  to  invite  guests  in  the  name  of 
the  Board,  and  to  provide  all  necessary  arrangements 
for  the  proper  commemoration  of  the  event ;  and  the 
Executive  Committee  is  hereby  authorized  to  make 
special  appropriation  to  defray  such  expenses  as  may 
be  determined  upon  by  said  special  committee. 

The  committee  thus  created  was  completed  by  the  nomin- 
ation of  the  Hon.  Alonzo  B.  Cornell,  the  Hon.  Andrew  Dick- 
son White,  LU.D.,  U.H.D.,  and  Daniel  Elmer  Salmon, 
D.V.M.,  to  serve  as  its  members  with  President  Jacob  Gould 
Schurman,  D.vSc,  I^T^.D.,  and  the  Hon.  Hcnrj-  Williams  Sage, 


8  INTRODUCTORY. 

Chainnan  of  the  IJoard  of  Trustees.  At  the  following  annual 
meeting,  June  14th,  1893,  Robert  Henry  Trenian,  B.M.E., 
was  appointed  to  the  place  on  the  conunittee  left  vacant  b\-  the 
expiration  of  Dr.  Salmon's  trusteeship. 

In  pursuance  of  the  action  of  the  Trustees,  there  were 
sent  out  in  August  and  September,  1893,  to  some  ftnir  thcni- 
sand  friends  of  the  University  the  following  invitation  : 

The  Trustees  and  Faciilt}^  of  Cornell  Univer- 
sity request  the  honor  of  3'our  presence  at  Ithaca, 
New  York,  on  Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunda}^,  Octo- 
ber sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth,  eighteen  hundred  and 
ninety-three,  for  the  Public  Exercises  in  Celebration 
of  the  Twenty-fifth  Anniversary  of  the  Opening  of 
the  University. 

The  programme  of  exercises  arranged  for  the  celebration 
ran  as  follows  : 

1868 

PROGRAMME 

OF  THE 

QUARTER-CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION 

OF  THE   OPENING   OF 

CORNELL  UNIVERSLFY 

FRIDAY,  SATURDAY,  AND  SUNDAY 

October  6th,  7T11,  and  Stii 

1S93 


introductory.  9 

Friday,  October  6th 

8-1 1  i>.  M.     General  Reception  and  Reunion  in  the  University 
Lil:>rarv. 


vSaturday,  Octobp:r  yTii 

The  day  will  l:te  (■<pened  with  a  vSalute  of  twenty-five  guns 
at  8  A.  i\i.,  and  the  Cliinies  will  l)e  plaj-ed  from  9  to  10 
A.  M.  The  Literary  Exercises  will  be  held  in  the  lyCcflure 
Room  of  the  Library,  beginning  at  10  A.  m.,  with  the  fol- 
lowing programme  : 

Music 

Prayer,  The  Rev.  W.  D.  Wilson,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Oration,  Hon.  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  LL.D. 

Music 

Address,  Hon.  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  LL.D. 

Address,  The  Rev.  Anson  J.  Upson,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Chancellor  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

Address,  The  Rev.  E.  N.  Potter,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

President  of  Hobart  College. 

Music 
Address,  Professor  G.  C.  Caldwell,  B.S.,  Ph.D. 

Address,  Hon.  Joseph  C.  Hendrix 

Presentation  of  Commemoratory  Volumes  : 

I.  To  Professor  Burt  G.  Wilder,  B.S.,  M.D.,  on  be- 
half of  his  former  Students,  by  Dr.  Theobald 
Smith,  Ph.B.,  '81,  with  reply  by  Professor 
Wilder 


lO  INTRODUCTORY. 

2.     To  the  University,  by 

Professor  Krxkst  W.  Hukfcut,  B.S.,  LL.B. 
Benediclion,  TiiK  Rkv.  vS.  H.  Synnott 

Music 
Immediately  after  the  exercises  the  invited  gnests,  aUniuii,  and 
officers   of  government,  administration,    and    instruction 
in  the  University  will  proceed  to  the  Gymnasium,  where 
dinner  will  be  served. 


Sunday,  October  8th 

II  A.  M.      Sermon, 
Rt.  Reverend  W.  C.  Doane,  D.D.  Oxon.,  LL.D.  Cantab. 
This  service  will  be  held  in  the  Armorv. 


7:30     Comniemoratory     Service     of    the  Cornell    University 
Christian  Association  in  Barnes  Hall  : 

Doxology,  By  the  Congregation 

Scripture  Reading  and  Prayer, 

The  Rev.  Charles  M.  Tyler,  A.M.,  D.D. 
Music 
What  the  A.ssociation  has  done  at  Cornell, 

Professor  Geo.  L.  Burr,  A.B. 
What  our  Aim  should  be,  James  P.  H.vll,  '94 

Music 
What  a  Christian  Association  can  do  for  a  University, 

John  R.  Mott,  '88,  Ph.B. 
The  Association  in  the  Church, 

Professor  B.  I.  Wheeler,  A.B.,  Ph.D. 
Benediction 


THE  REUNION 


THE  REUNION. 


On  the  evening  of  Friday,  October  the  sixth,  there  gath- 
ered at  the  reunion  in  the  University  Library,  together  with 
members  of  the  University  and  many  citizens  of  Ithaca,  a  large 
number  of  guests  from  all  parts  of  the  country — old  students 
and  alumni,  early  friends  of  the  University,  and  eminent  repre- 
sentatives of  sister  institutions.  They  were  received  by  Presi- 
dent and  Mrs.  Schurman,  by  the  Hon.  Henry  W.  Sage,  Chair- 
man of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  by  Mrs.  Dean  Sage,  of 
Albany. 

Nearly  all  the  rooms  of  the  Library  were  thrown  open  to 
the  guests,  and  there  were  exposed  for  their  inspection  the 
various  official  publications  of  the  University  and  the  most 
notable  recent  accessions  to  its  shelves — .specimen  volumes 
from  the  Zarncke  library,  lately  bought  and  presented  to  the 
University  by  Mr.  William  H.  Sage,  from  the  Dante  collection 
now  being  gathered  for  it  as  the  gift  of  Professor  Willard  Fiske, 
and,  in  the  President  White  Library,  a  body  of  handsomely 
illustrated  Russian  works,  sent  for  this  anniversary,  in  token 
of  his  continued  interest,  by  Ex-President  White.  There  was 
also  on  exhibition,  in  the  President  White  Librarj-,  the  newly- 
completed  portrait  of  Ezra  Cornell,  by  Mr.  J.  Colin  Forbes, 
ordered  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York  for  the 
State  Library  at  Albany. 


THE  ADDRESSES 


THE  ADDRESSES. 


Saturday  morning  dawned  fair  and  bright,  a  perfect  Octo- 
ber daj',  like  that  which  it  commemorated.  Ushered  in  by  the 
artillery  salute  at  eight  and  the  chimes  from  nine  till  ten,  the 
literar}'  exercises,  in  the  great  hall  of  the  University  Eibrary, 
were  opened  by  prayer,  offered  by  the  first  Registrar  of  the 
University,  the  Rev.  William  Dexter  Wilson,  D.D.,  IX-D., 
ly.H.D.,  Professor  Emeritus  of  Philosophy. 

President  Schurman  then  addressed  the  audience  as 
follows  : 

Honored  Guests^  Ahunni\  and  Friends  : 

111  tlie  name  of  the  University  I  bid  you  all  a 
cordial  welcome  !  We  have  invited  you  to  join  with 
us  ill  celebrating  the  twentj^-iifth  anniversary  of  the 
opening  of  the  University.  When  that  event  took 
place,  there  was  a  complaint  that  nothing  was  fin- 
ished. Replying  to  this  criticism,  the  founder  of  the 
University  in  his  short  but  pregnant  and  memorable 
speech  expressed  his  own  view  and  the  view  of  the 
Trustees  regarding  the  future  of  the  University  in 
words  which  I  will  now  take  the  liberty  of  reading  to 
you.  "  I  hope,"  said  he,  "we  have  laid  the  foundation 
of  an  institution  which  shall  combine  practical  with 
liberal  education,  which  shall  fit  the  youth  of  our 
country  for  the  professions,  the  farms,  the  mines,  the 


1 8  THE   ADDRESSES. 

manufactures,  for  the  investigations  of  science  and 
for  mastering  all  the  practical  questions  of  life  with 
success  and  honor."  That  was  our  founder's  idea 
of  the  new  university.  And  in  the  presence  of  this 
distinguished  assembly,  adorned  with  the  presence 
of  so  many  representatives  of  other  seats  of  learning 
in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  in  the  North  and  in  the 
South,  I  venture  to  say  that  Ezra  Cornell's  is  the 
final  and  absolute  conception  of  the  mission  of  a 
university.  With  due  modesty  I  confess  we  are  far 
from  having  attained  unto  the  realization  of  our 
founder's  ideal.  Something,  however,  has  been 
done ;  though  there  is  much  still  to  do.  Between 
this  task  which  beckons  us  on  and  that  achievement 
which  is  behind  we  stand  to-day.  It  will,  I  am  sure, 
at  once  deepen  our  respect  for  the  past  and  inspire 
us  with  faith  and  hope  for  the  future,  if  on  this  occa- 
sion w^e  consider,  under  the  guidance  of  the  eloquent 
gentleman  who  will  now  address  us,  what  has  been 
accomplished  by  Cornell  University  in  the  short 
span  of  twenty-five  years.  And  so  it  gives  me  pleas- 
ure, as  I  also  esteem  it  an  honor,  to  present  the  orator 
of  the  day,  the  Hon.  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  LL.D. 

MR.  DEPEW'S  ORATION. 

Mr.  Pi'csident  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

This  is  an  American  anniversary.  It  celebrates  a 
life  which  is  representative  of  American  conditions 
and  opportunities,  and  a  universit}'  founded  to  meet 


MR.    DKPKW'S    ORATION.  I9 

the  practical  necessities  of  American  yonth.  Cornell 
was  the  first  of  the  great  colleges  to  cultivate  a  field 
outside  the  lessons  and  traditions  of  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen.  The  most  exquisite  of  pleasures  is  con- 
tact with  the  perennial  youth  of  our  alma  mater. 
Parties  dissolve,  friends  grow  cold,  loved  ones  depart, 
and  age  becomes  a  solitude,  but  a  day  with  the  col- 
lege revives  the  enthusiasms  and  ambitions  of  the 
past  and  puts  us  in  touch  with  the  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions of  the  present.  Patriotic  or  commemorative 
celebrations  are  ephemeral.  The  centuries  and  their 
divisions  which  mark  the  recurring  natal  days  of 
these  great  and  ever  growing  centers  of  learning  are 
eternal.  We  admire  or  reverence  past  events,  as  we 
do  statues  or  monuments,  only  when  we  are  in  their 
presence.  The  fresh  and  stimulating  influences  of 
college  life  are  ever  with  us.  Ideas  are  companions  ; 
facts  are  mile-stones.  Head  and  heart  are  united  in 
the  sentiments  and  emotions  of  this  day. 

The  life  of  Ezra  Cornell  is  a  lesson  and  an  in- 
spiration. The  study  of  his  struggles  and  success 
is  a  liberal  education.  Our  meeting  would  lose 
much  of  its  significance  if  it  failed  to  enforce  the  les- 
son of  the  career  and  commemorate  the  character  of 
the  founder.  Sixtj^-five  years  ago  young  Cornell, 
who  had  just  attained  his  majority  and  started  out  to 
seek  his  fortune,  after  a  walk  of  forty  miles  rested 
upon  one  of  the  hills  overlooking  this  beautiful  lake. 
This  reticent  Quaker  was  passionately  fond  of  na- 
ture, and  he  was  entranced  b}^  the  superb  panorama 


20  THK    ADDRESSES. 

spread  out  before  him.  Few  places  on  earth  possess 
so  many  scenic  attractions.  The  only  view  I  know 
which  compares  with  this  is  the  view  from  the  Acrop- 
olis at  Athens,  with  the  plain  in  front,  the  Pentelic 
mountains  behind,  and  the  blue  ^Kgean  in  the 
distance. 

The  3'oung  mechanic  had  neither  friends  nor  ac- 
quaintances in  the  village  which  nestled  at  his  feet, 
and  his  worldly  possessions  were  all  in  a  little  bundle 
on  the  end  of  the  stick  which  served  for  staff  and 
baggage-wagon.  He  had  no  mone}'  and  only  a  spare 
suit  of  clothes,  but  with  health,  good  habits,  ambi- 
tion, industr}',  and  a  perfect  knowledge  of  what  he 
intended  to  do,  and  an  equal  determination  to  do  it, 
he  entered  Ithaca  a  conqueror.  No  delegation  of 
citizens  met  him  at  the  gates,  no  triumphal  proces- 
sion bore  him  in  a  chariot,  no  arches  spanned  the 
streets,  but  the  man  who  was  to  make  this  then 
secluded  hamlet  known  throughout  the  world  had 
done  for  Ithaca  the  greatest  service  it  could  receive 
by  deciding  to  become  its  citizen.  Though  poor,  he 
was  far  removed  from  poverty.  His  situation  illus- 
trates one  of  the  hopeful  features  of  American  con- 
ditions. Neither  doubt  nor  despair  was  in  his  mind. 
He  had  found  his  place  and  knew  he  could  improve 
it.  He  saw  his  ladder  and  began  to  climb  it.  It  is  the 
genius  of  our  people  to  get  on,  and  it  is  the  pleasure 
of  the  community  to  help  and  applaud.  Occasional 
failures  test  the  metal  of  the  aspirant,  and  hard 
knocks  develop  grit  or  gelatin.     There  arc,  unhappi- 


^IR.    DHPHW'S   ORATION.  21 

ly,  siifferiug  and  helplessness  incident  to  the  prac- 
tical workings  of  the  doctrine  of  the  snrvival  of  the 
fittest,  but  vigor  and  manhood  win  their  rewards. 

Faith  and  works  were  the  principles  of  Ezra  Cor- 
nell and  the  carpenter's  bench  a  platform  and  pre- 
paration for  larger  efforts.  Adaptability  and  concen- 
tration of  effort  have  developed  the  resources  of  the 
country.  They  have  opened  mines  in  the  mountains 
and  transformed  the  prairies  from  wild  wastes  to 
fields  rich  with  golden  grain  and  dotted  with  happy 
homes.  They  have  suggested  the  inventions  to  meet 
the  necessities  of  the  hour.  They  are  American 
characteristics.  They  belong  only  to  a  people  who 
are  not  trained  in  grooves  and  are  not  taught  to  plant 
their  feet  only  in  the  deeply  worn  molds  made  in  the 
pathway  of  time  by  the  steps  of  their  ancestors. 
With  Mr.  Cornell  these  qualities  were  superlative 
gifts.  As  a  carpenter  he  improved  the  methods  of 
his  village  master  ;  as  a  mechanic  he  devised  ma- 
chines which  overcame  unexpected  difficulties  ;  as  an 
unprejudiced  practical  man  he  became  familiar  with 
the  uses  of  electricity  while  the  professor  was  still 
lecturing  upon  its  dangers. 

Morse  had  discovered  the  telegraph,  and  if  he 
had  lived  in  an  earlier  age  he  would  have  been  either 
incarcerated  or  incinerated.  Bigots  looked  with  sus- 
picion upon  this  possibly  sacrilegious  trifling  with 
the  lightning,  scientists  doubted  the  utility  of  the 
invention  and  congressmen  regarded  it  with  distrust. 
The  inventor  needed  an  undaunted  and  indomitable 


22  THE   ADDRESSES. 

mail  of  affairs  to  deiiioiistrate  to  capitalists  its  possi- 
bilities and  to  tlie  public  its  beneficence,  and  lie 
found  liiiii  ill  Ezra  Cornell,  who  saw  its  future,  and 
upon  his  judgment  staked  the  accumulations  of  his 
life  and  the  almost  superhuman  labors  of  a  decade. 
He  owned  electric  shares  of  the  fiice  value  of  mil- 
lions and  went  hungry  to  bed  because  he  had  not 
the  means  to  pay  for  a  meal,  and  his  family  suffered 
because  they  could  not  be  trusted  for  a  barrel  of 
flour.  But  neither  want  nor  debt  nor  the  sheriff 
could  wrest  from  him  his  telegraph  stock.  I  know 
of  no  more  dramatic  scene  in  the  lives  of  any  of 
our  successful  men  than  the  spectacle  of  this  po- 
tential millionaire  tramping  through  the  highways 
and  byways  of  penury,  suffering,  and  sickness,  up- 
held b}^  his  sublime  faith  in  his  work  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  its  recognition.  Suddenly  the  darkness 
was  dispelled  and  the  day  dawned.  People  woke  up 
to  the  necessity  of  the  telegraph  for  the  government 
and  for  commerce,  and  Cornell's  faith  had  coined  for 
him  a  fortune. 

In  a  country  like  ours,  where  so  many  accumu- 
late great  wealth,  its  proper  use  and  distribution  are 
becoming  questions  of  national  as  well  as  individual 
interest.  A  half-centuiy  ago  the  subject  was  un- 
known ;  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  the  public 
thought  little  and  cared  less  about  it ;  but  to-day  it 
threatens  to  become  the  incentive  to  or  the  solvent  of 
socialism.  The  concentration  of  riches  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  agrariauism   have   advanced  with   equal 


MR.    DF.rRW'S    ORATION.  23 

pace.  The  recent  political  movements,  which  in 
some  states  defeated  both  the  national  parties,  were 
the  expression  at  the  polls  of  the  silent  forces  whose 
growth  and  strength  had  been  nnnoticed.  Though 
the  principles  of  the  new  faith  are  vagne,  incoherent, 
and  apparently  absnrd,  the  underlying  power  which 
welds  and  wields  them  is  hatred  and  distrnst  of 
property. 

The  objective  point  is  at  present  the  corporation. 
Bnt,  as  the  operation  and  necessity  of  this  device  for 
transacting  a  business  in  which  all  as  stockholders 
can  participate  is  better  understood,  the  millionaire 
becomes  the  target.  It  is  at  once  the  anomaly  and 
the  danger  of  the  crusade,  that  it  enlists  those  who 
are  themselves  property-holders,  as  farmers  or  house- 
owners  or  tradesmen,  against  those  who  have  more. 
Selfish  and  ostentatious  wealth  is  the  most  potent 
agency  for  promoting  the  methods  for  its  own  dimi- 
nution and  destruction  by  legislation,  while  the  wise 
and  generous  use  of  mone}^  builds  barriers  for  its 
protection. 

The  most  arrogant  and  offensive  manager  of 
money  is  often  the  man  who  has  endured  and  suf- 
fered adversity  and  finally  becomes  a  success.  He 
proudly  boasts,  "I  owe  nothing  to  the  world,"  and  "no 
one  ever  did  anything  for  me."  He  is  neither  sym- 
pathetic with  the  struggling  nor  sensitive  to  duty. 
As  a  money-making  machine  he  incurs  the  enmity 
of  his  fellows  and  cares  nothing  for  their  good  will. 
With  an  increasing  contempt  for  those  who  fail  to 


24  THE   ADDRESSES. 

get  on  ill  business  conies  a  growing  disparageinent 
of  the  value  of  the  work  or  services  of  others.  He 
pays  grudgingly,  and  gives  regretfully  oiih'  under 
the  resistless  pressure  of  his  surroundings.  In  the 
lending  of  money  he  practices  the  arts  of  the  usurer, 
and  in  speculation  those  of  the  gambler.  The  world 
gains  nothing  by  his  life,  and  his  heirs  are  his  onl}' 
beneficiaries  at  his  death.  Such  a  man  does  infinite 
harm.  He  is  at  once  the  excuse  for  and  the  irritant  of 
the  combination  of  the  elements,  which,  either  blind- 
ly or  viciously,  labor  for  the  destruction  of  our  insti- 
tious  and  law\s.  He  has  existed  under  all  forms  of 
government  and  society,  but  it  is  in  a  republic  that 
he  becomes  peculiarly  obnoxious,  and  the  methods  of 
reaching  him  seem  more  accessible. 

There  are  men  who  so  use  their  wealth  that  the 
whole  community  rejoices  in  their  good  fortune  and 
applauds  the  management  of  their  trusts.  Their 
course  sharply  differentiates  between  property  and 
its  administration.  They  draw^  the  fire  from  vested 
interests,  upon  whose  integrity  and  safety-  the  struct- 
ure of  society  depends,  and  concentrate  it  upon  the 
unworthy  steward  who  defies  the  written  laws  of 
God  and  the  unwritten  ones  of  men.  A  most  noble 
and  brilliant  representative  of  this  class  was  the 
founder  of  this  university.  Prosperit}'  made  him 
neither  an  idler  nor  a  voluptuary.  It  added  fresh 
vigor  to  his  work,  enlarged  his  vision,  and  broad- 
ened his  sympathies.  No  mawkish  sentimentality 
nor  theatrical  surprises  were  in  his  character.     He 


MR.    DEPEW'S    ORATION.  25 

determined  to  devote  a  portion  of  his  fortnne  to 
the  welfare  of  his  conntrynien  and  countrywomen 
and  decided  that  the  best  way  was  to  give  them  the 
education  and  training  with  which  to  help  them- 
selves. He  had  the  self-made  man's  belief  that  a 
successful  career  is  possible  to  every  one  who  tries, 
but  he  knew  from  sore  experience  how  difficult  is  prog- 
ress for  the  poorly  equipped  in  the  sharp  competi- 
tion of  life.  He  did  not  give  up  money-making.  On 
the  contrary,  the  more  beneficent  purposes  to  which 
he  found  it  could  be  applied,  the  harder  he  worked 
to  gain  more.  His  was  the  ideal  of  the  divine  injunc- 
tion to  be  "diligent  in  business,  serving  the  Lord." 
In  great  crises  in  the  history  of  nations  and  in 
the  conjunction  of  events  which  produce  revolutions 
in  the  moral,  the  mental,  or  the  ph3^sical  conditions 
of  a  people,  God  always  provides  the  man  for  the 
eniergenc}^  The  causes  which  produce  him  and  the 
results  wdiich  follow  his  actions  may  form  an  epoch 
in  the  development  of  the  race  or  only  contribute  to 
characteristics  which  mark  a  century.  A  Caesar,  a 
Hannibal,  a  Napoleon,  a  Peter  the  Hermit,  a  Luther, 
are  eras  in  the  story  of  the  world.  The  generations 
which  live  in  the  period  of  the  activities  of  such 
phenomenal  genius  are  either  consumed  by  the 
burning  heat  of  the  sun  or  blinded  by  its  radiance. 
Centuries  must  elapse  before  we  can  calmly  contem- 
plate their  powers  or  achievements,  forgetting  the 
frightful  sufferings  and  calamities  through  which 
their  work  assumed  form  and  permanence. 


'    OF  TH2      ^s^ 

u«fI7BE3ITYl 


26  THE    ADDRESSES. 

It  is  our  happier  lot  to  celebrate  one  of  those  mi- 
nor events  wliicli  is  not  n  revolution,  but  an  evolu- 
ti(jn.  The  L;-()vcrnnicnt  of  the  United  vStates  suddenly 
discovered  that  it  had  a  duty  to  perform  toward  the 
education  of  the  people.  The  federal  constitution 
made  it  necessary  to  act  through  the  states.  Con- 
gress gave  for  this  purpose  a  large  grant  of  land, 
and  nearly  a  million  of  acres  came  to  New  York. 
Schools  struggling  in  financial  difficulties,  localities 
ambitious  for  an  institution  of  learning,  and  specu- 
lators seeking  the  possession  of  the  prize  threatened 
the  confiscation  or  dissipation  of  the  trust.  The 
friends  of  higher  education,  who  had  hoped  for  great 
benefits  to  the  commonwealth  from  the  wise  admin- 
istration of  this  fund,  were  in  despair.  The  wisdom 
and  generosity  of  Mr.  Cornell  saved  the  honor  of 
the  state  and  rescued  the  national  gift  for  education. 
He  said:  ''Concentrate  this  endowment,  which  is 
the  onl}^  wa}^  to  get  its  benefits,  and  I  will  add  a  half 
million  dollars  to  it  from  my  own  fortune."  It  is 
a  significant  commentary  upon  the  ignorance  and 
greed  of  the  times  and  the  progress  indicated  b}^  this 
celebration  that  the  state  of  New  York  exacted  from 
Ezra  Cornell  $25,000  as  a  forced  tribute  for  the  priv- 
ilege of  giving  $500,000  of  his  own  monc}-  for  the 
permanent  benefit  of  her  people. 

The  selection  and  placing  upon  the  market  by 
the  several  states  of  these  lands  had  reduced  their 
price  so  low  that  but  a  fraction  of  the  sum  intended 
was    realized.     Then    the   same   business    sagacit}^, 


MR.    DEPEW'S   ORATION.  2/ 

foresight,  and  indomitable  courage  whicli  had  carried 
the  telegraph  to  success  again  came  to  the  public 
service.  The  founder  contracted  with  the  state  to 
carry  these  lands  and  bear  all  the  burdens  of  main- 
tenance and  taxation  until  their  value  should  be 
commensurate  with  the  purposes  for  which  they  Avere 
dedicated.  The  trust  impaired  his  fortune,  increased 
his  cares,  and  brought  upon  him  a  storm  of  criti- 
cism and  slander,  but  the  strength  and  grandeur  of 
this  great  and  growing  university  are  the  living 
monuments  which  vindicate  his  name  and  fame. 

The  figures  and  results  marvelously  demonstrate 
the  wisdom  and  sagacity  of  Ezra  Cornell.  The  land 
grant  to  all  the  states  was  9,597,840  acres,  of  which 
New  York's  alone  was  989,920  acres.  The  whole 
grant  realized  the  sum  of  $15,866,371,  of  which  New 
York's  part  brought  $6,661,473,  or  nearly  one-half 
of  the  money  for  one-tenth  of  the  land.  Truly  in 
this,  as  among  the  many  events  which  have  made 
New  York  the  Empire  State  of  the  Union,  when  the 
clock  struck  the  hour  the  man  among  her  people 
wdio  was  equal  to  the  occasion  answered,  "Willing 
and  ready." 

It  was  my  privilege  as  a  young  man  and  the 
youngest  member  of  the  Legislature  to  sit  beside  Ezra 
Cornell.  I  learned  to  love  and  revere  him.  In  those 
days,  so  full  of  the  strife  and  passions  of  the  civil 
war,  it  was  a  wonder  and  inspiration  to  listen  to  the 
peaceful  plans  of  this  practical  philanthropist  for  the 
benefit  of  his  fellow  men.     The  times  were  big  with 


2 8  THE   ADDRESvSES. 

gij^aiitic  schemes  for  the  acquisition  of  sudden  for- 
tunes, and  his  colleagues  could  not  understand  this 
most  earnest  and  unselfish  worker.  To  most  of 
them  he  was  a  schemer  whose  purposes  they  could 
not  fathom,  and  to  the  rest  of  us  he  seemed  a  dream- 
er whose  visions  would  never  materialize.  These 
doubters  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  esteem  it  a 
high  privilege  to  stand  in  this  presence  and  an  hon- 
or to  have  the  opportunity  to  contribute  a  chaplet  to 
the  wreaths  which  crown  the  statue  of  Ezra  Cornell. 
I  remember  that  a  scheme  had  been  perfected 
whose  ramifications  extended  all  over  the  state  and 
embraced  the  strongest  men  of  both  parties  to  raid 
the  treasury  upon  a  false  assumption  of  the  needs  of 
the  canals.  The  measure  was  sprung  suddenly  up- 
on the  house,  and  as  chairman  of  the  committee  of 
ways  and  means  it  was  my  dut}^  to  fight  it.  I  was 
almost  \yholl3^  unprepared  for  the  task.  When  the 
enemy  seemed  about  to  triumph,  Mr.  Cornell  opened 
his  desk,  took  from  it  a  carefully  arranged  mass 
of  figures  and  statistics,  and  placed  them  before  me. 
"I  have  been  gathering  these  for  several  weeks,"  he 
said,  "in  order  to  make  a  speech  against  this  bill, 
but  3^ou  need  them  now."  The}''  gave  such  full  and 
complete  refutations  of  the  claims  of  the  combination 
that  at  the  close  of  the  debate  the  proposed  act  was 
defeated  and  its  advocates  so  completely  routed  that 
it  was  never  revived.  He  cared  more  for  the  triumph 
of  the  truth  than  for  any  fame  he  might  gain  as  its 
advocate.     It  was  this  utter  oblivion  to  self  which 


MR.    DEPEW'S   ORATION.  29 

led  liiiu  to  sacrifice  evcrj^tliing  for  tliis  university 
when  once  he  had  become  convinced  of  its  necessity 
and  laid  its  foundations. 

It  was  the  highest  public  spirit  which  moved  him 
to  contribute  a  half  million  of  dollars  to  concentrate 
and  preserve  the  congressional  land  grant.  It  was 
the  nobilit}^  which  rises  above  natural  and  justifiable 
indignation  that  made  him  submit  to  the  toll  of 
$25,000  for  the  privilege  of  grandty  giving  of  his  own. 
It  was  the  spirit  of  which  martyrs  are  made  that  in- 
spired him  to  carr}^  the  land  grant  through  years  of 
financial  depression,  periling  his  fortune  and  impair- 
ing his  health  with  the  burden  until  finally  the  trust 
which  would  have  brought  only  thousands  realized 
millions.  It  was  the  martyr  to  the  purest  and  loftiest 
sense  of  duty  to  his  country  and  mankind,  who 
buried  the  larger  part  of  his  estate  building  the  rail- 
roads which  connected  his  university  with  the  trans- 
portation facilities  of  the  country.  But  he  secured 
for  the  people  a  seat  of  learning  which  will  be  ever 
increasing  in  strength  and  beneficence,  and  for  him- 
self the  gratitude  of  all  succeeding  generations  and 
immortal  fame. 

Text-books  and  lectures  are  only  part  of  an  ed- 
ucation. There  is  more  growth  without  than  within 
the  class-room.  The  faculty  may  be  ever  so  faithful 
and  learned — there  is  still  much  beyond  them.  The 
spirit  of  a  college  indelibly  impresses  its  students. 
With  the  century-old  foundations,  it  is  the  treasured 
memories  and  traditions  of  a  brilliant  past.    It  is  the 


30  THE   ADDRESSES. 

force  of  the  accumulated  achievements  arid  examples 
of  generations  of  alumni  who  have  illustrated  and 
illumined  the  progress  and  glory  of  the  republic.  It 
matters  little  to  Yale  or  Harvard  that  their  founders 
are  scarcely  more  than  names  with  which  nothing 
tangible  can  be  connected.  It  is  much — it  is  every- 
thing— to  young  Cornell  that  her  sons  can  be  in- 
spired by  such  a  founder. 

The  main  object  of  higher  education  through  all 
the  ages  had  been  to  prepare  men  for  the  next  world. 
It  had  not  been  thought  necessar}^  to  do  much  for 
women,  either  for  earth  or  heaven.  The  Puritans 
started  the  college  with  the  settlement,  but  it  was  to 
train  young  men  for  the  Christian  ministry.  We 
have  not  yet  entirely  recovered  from  the  belief  that  a 
university  career  is  worse  than  useless,  except  for 
the  pulpit,  law,  and  medicine.  But  the  founder  of 
this  institution  profoundl}^  believed  that  the  better 
fitted  a  man  was  for  his  life-work,  the  better  his 
preparation  for  an  existence  beyond  the  grave.  A 
successful  worker,  in  a  nation  of  workers,  cared 
nothing  for  speculative  philosophies,  but  had  un- 
bounded faith  in  the  possibilities  of  an  educated 
farmer  or  mechanic. 

The  materialism  of  our  time  is  frequentl}'-  de- 
nounced and  eloquently  assailed.  It  is  in  a  sense 
the  protest  of  the  present  against  the  past ;  of  the 
practical  progressists  against  the  musty  schoolmen. 
It  gives  our  people  more  and  better  homes.  Its  in- 
ventions add  immeasurably  to  the  comfort  and  happi- 


• 


MR.    DEPEW'S    ORATION.  3I 

ness  of  our  lives.  Its  enterprise  iiiul  energy  develop 
onr  resources  and  increase  our  national  wealth. 
Gross  materialism,  which  sacrifices  everything  to  the 
mere  accumulation  of  money,  merits  the  censure  it 
receives,  but  the  real  benefactors  of  the  world  in  our 
age  of  hard  struggles  and  hot  competition  are  those 
who  do  most  to  fit  both  heads  and  hands  for  the 
needs  of  the  hour.  Whatever  blessings  have  be- 
longed in  the  past  to  him  who  made  two  blades  of 
grass  to  grow  where  only  one  did  before,  are  equally 
earned  by  the  man  whose  locomotive  or  electrical  de- 
vice or  machine  or  engine  have  multiplied  power  and 
simplified  labor.  Every  scientific  or  mining,  tech- 
nological or  manual-training  school  is  the  outgrowth 
of  and  contribution  to  our  higher  materialism.  The 
new  learning  is  not  an  assault  upon  but  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  old.  The  splendid  results  of  ancient 
methods  keep  firm  their  hold  upon  the  colleges.  The 
training  they  give  is  equally  beneficial  for  business 
and  the  professions. 

It  is  the  liberal  education  for  ordinary  pursuits 
which  this  university  has  demonstrated  to  be  one  of 
the  great  aims  of  teaching.  "I  would  found  an  insti- 
tution where  any  person  can  find  instruction  in  any 
study,"  was  the  motto  of  the  founder.  It  embraces 
in  its  catholic  hospitality  both  sexes  and  all  condi- 
tions in  life.  It  is  a  trite  truism  that  intelligence 
and  virtue  are  the  safety  of  a  republic.  For  our 
period  intelligence  requires  a  broader  interpretation. 
The  ordinary  equipment  of  the  school  is  not  suffi- 


32  run   ADDREvSvSPlS. 

cicnt  now,  lli()Ui;'h  it  miolit  have  been  with  our  fa- 
thers. It  iiiiist  be  supplcineiited  by  both  practical 
and  scientific  training  for  one's  cliosen  vocation. 

Tlic  rule  of  the  thumb  was  tlie  orthodox  faith  of 
the  past  and  is  the  transparent  weakness  for  the 
present.  Greek  and  Latin  will  continue  to  occupy 
leading  places  in  a  liberal  education.  These  lan- 
guages may  be  dead  as  spoken  tongues,  but  they 
embalm  the  priceless  treasures  of  the  past  which 
have  more  than  once  rescued  learning  from  the  dark- 
ness and  led  the  mind  of  the  age  to  the  light.  It  is 
not  ever3'one  who  has  the  time,  the  disposition,  or 
the  ability  to  master  the  classic  curriculum  and  its 
attendant  requirements.  There  was  no  place  for 
them  within  a  period  so  recent  that  it  hardly  ante- 
dates the  day  we  celebrate. 

The  academy  of  Plato  flourished  at  Athens  for 
nine  hundred  years.  It  preserved  and  stimulated 
the  intellectual  life  of  the  civilized  world  through 
all  those  centuries.  Justinian  prepared  the  wa}^  for 
the  dark  ages  b}^  closing  this  venerable  seat  of  learn- 
ing and  confiscating  its  endowments.  But  his  prac- 
tical education  perished  with  the  classical  teaching 
which  he  thought  useless. 

In  this  university  Plato's  academy  and  the  new 
education  can  dwell  harmoniously  and  work  benefi- 
cently on  the  same  campus.  The  student  has  his 
choice  between  higher  education  for  mental  discipline 
and  intellectual  strength  and  pleasure,  and  higher 
education  specificall}-  for  his  vocation.     His  diploma 


MR.    DKPKW'S    ORATION.  33 

informs  the  world  precisely  what  his  alma  mater  has 
given.  A  review  of  the  courses  prescribed  and  per- 
mitted here  would  have  paral3^zed  Duns  Scotus, 
amazed  Erasmus,  and  shocked  Abelard.  They  would 
have  felt  that  they  had  touched  the  base  earth  and 
its  ignoble  occupants.  But  we  could  not  live  in  the 
clouds  of  the  middle  ages.  With  us  the  earth  is  the 
Lord's,  and  its  dwellers  his  children,  with  equal 
rights  and  share  in  its  blessings  and  opportunities. 
All  work  in  it  or  on  it  is  noble. 

This  experiment  was  hailed  with  derision  and 
distrust.  It  had  been  settled  by  Plato's  academy, 
and  never  after  doubted,  that  repose  and  retirement 
from  the  activities  of  life  were  essential  to  study  and 
thought.  The  venerable  grove  and  the  moss-covered 
and  ivy-crowned  hall  were  the  symbols  of  learning. 
"The  roar  of  the  steam  engine,  the  shriek  of  its 
whistle,  the  clatter  of  machinery,  the  fascination  of 
the  electric  motors,  the  handiwork  of  the  architect, 
the  engineer,  the  surveyor,  the  farmer,  the  artisan, 
upon  the  campus  will  destroy,"  said  the  teachers,  "all 
concentration  upon  text-books  and  reflection  upon 
lectures."  The  issue  was  confidently  met  and  cour- 
ageously fought.  We  are  here  to  celebrate  the  suc- 
cess of  the  idea  of  which  Cornell  is  the  chief  expo- 
nent. From  the  chairs  of  the  faculty  of  many  col- 
leges, from  the  bench,  the  bar,  the  pulpit,  the  doctor's 
office,  and  the  editorial  sanctum ;  from  the  field,  the 
farm,  and  the  factory  ;  from  the  counting  room,  the 
telegraph,  and  the  railwa}',  the  alumni  of   Cornell 


34  THE   ADDRESSES. 

uiiivcrsit}'  are  gathered  to  do  loving  and  reverent 
honor  to  tlie  gifts  which  have  lifted  them  into  both 
the  practice  and  enjo3nnent  of  their  several  pursuits. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  declared  that  "none  of  our 
intellectual  studies  tend  to  cultivate  a  smaller  num- 
ber of  the  faculties  in  a  more  partial  and  feeble  man- 
ner than  mathematics."  Dr.  Whewell  writes  that 
"mere  classical  reading  is  a  narrow  and  enfeebling 
education,"  while  Herbert  Spencer  solves  in  his  large 
wa}'  the  whole  problem  of  study  by  his  compact 
statement  that  "to  suppose  that  deciding  whether  a 
mathematical  or  a  classical  education  is  the  best  in 
deciding  what  is  the  proper  curriculum,  is  much  the 
same  thing  as  to  suppose  that  the  whole  of  dietetics 
lies  in  ascertaining  whether  or  not  bread  is  more  nu- 
tritive than  potatoes."  The  wise  liver  finds  food  in 
the  life  and  products  of  the  land,  the  water,  and  the 
air,  and  selects  that  which  nourishes  him  best.  And 
so  classics  and  mathematics, — history,  literature,  and 
philosoph}^, — physics,  botany,  zoolog}^  physiolog}^, 
and  the  structure  of  the  mind, — politics,  economics, 
and  science, — intellectual  development  and  manual 
training,  are  the  component  parts  of  the  equipment 
which  the  new  learning  offers  to  the  student  for  his 
choice  and  needs.  The  variet}''  and  excellence  of  the 
world,  the  multiplication  and  beneficence  of  its  activ- 
ities, are  due  to  the  fact  that  what  is  meat  for  one 
man  is  poison  for  his  neighbor. 

The  niar\cl()us  quarter  of  a  centur}-  behind  us 
has  no  greater  distinction   than   the  advance  in  the 


MR.    DEPRW'S   ORATION.  35 

education  of  woman.  The  doubts  whicli  surrounded 
the  movement  have  been  dispelled  by  the  splendid 
demonstration  of  her  ability  to  successfully  compete 
with  her  brothers  in  au}^  and  every  field  of  intellect- 
ual study  and  research.  It  is  now  urged  that,  when 
returning  home,  she  is  so  much  better  educated  than 
the  village  swain,  she  either  rejects  him  and  fails  in 
her  mission,  or,  as  his  wife,  despises  him.  Ignorance 
is  no  excuse  for  keeping  others  ignorant.  The 
alumnas  of  our  female  colleges  will  see  to  it  that 
their  boys  are  educated,  and  they  are  more  and  more 
every  year  the  most  active  and  effective  workers  for 
greater  facilities  and  freer  opportunities  for  stud3\ 
Their  co-education  at  Cornell  with  the  young  men 
has  cultivated  the  best  traits  and  most  chivalric 
characteristics  of  American  manhood.  Their  ambi- 
tion and  success  have  stimulated  every  department 
of  the  university  to  more  earnest  effort  and  higher 
ideals. 

The  emancipation  of  woman  from  the  crushing 
slavery  of  a  few  overcrowded  and  wretchedly  remu- 
nerated industries  has  increased  incalculably  both  the 
sum  of  human  happiness  and  the  well-being  of  our 
communities.  Education  has  fitted  her  for  fields 
which  needed  her  labor,  and  the  world  is  enriched 
by  her  skill  and  fidelity,  and  the  better  for  her  inde- 
pendence. 

The  eighteenth  century  produced  only  two  inven- 
tions— Franklin's  lightning-rod  and  a  machine  for 
the  manufacture  of  nails.    The  nineteenth,  with  the 


36  TIIK   ADDRKSSRS. 

telegraph  and  telephone,  the  sewing  machine  and 
the  cotton  gin,  the  railwa}^  and  the  steamship,  and 
the  thousands  of  other  motors  of  progress,  has  re- 
deemed and  regenerated  the  globe.  These  marvels 
have  changed  the  relations  of  men  to  each  other  and 
revolutionized  their  standing  with  the  state.  They 
have  proved  hotbeds  of  democracy  and  encouraged 
despotism.  The  pace  has  been  too  rapid  for  human- 
ity to  adjust  itself  to  the  new  conditions.  Both  so- 
ciety and  the  commonwealth  require  educated  intelli- 
gence for  their  safety.  The  fathers  built  their 
republic  upon  the  individual.  His  independence  was 
the  keystone  of  the  arch  which  supported  their  insti- 
tutions. The  mighty  forces  which  the  inventions 
have  made  obedient  to  the  service  of  man  have  so  in- 
creased productive  power  and  energy  that  we  live  in 
an  era  of  great  combinations. 

Organization  threatens  the  destruction  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  corporation  or  the  trust  says  he  shall 
not  do  business  except  as  their  employee  or  by 
merging  his  plant  in  theirs,  and  the  labor  union  says 
he  shall  not  work  unless  he  does  so  by  its  rules  and 
with  its  permission.  Aggregated  capital,  united  to 
build  up  and  carry  on  important  enterprises,  causes 
labor  to  create  counter  forces  for  protection.  The 
one  attacks  the  small  producer  or  manufacturer  and 
drives  him  out  of  business,  and  the  other  prohibits 
the  artisan  from  individually  accepting  employment, 
no  matter  what  his  skill,  his  desire  or  necessities. 
The  same  concentration   of  })()\ver  has    invaded   the 


MR.    DEPEW'S    ORATION.  37 

Sphere  of  politics.  Our  cities  are  governed  by  one  or 
more  powerful  leaders,  who,  without  the  responsibil- 
ities of  office,  command  the  unquestioning  obedience 
of  the  office-holders,  and  our  states  are  rapidly  run- 
ning into  the  same  conditions. 

In  1862  Abraham  Liucoln  had  upon  his  desk  the 
emancipation  proclamation  and  the  land  grant  bill  to 
promote  education.  He  signed  them  both.  The  one 
was  an  essential  complement  of  the  other.  Without 
education,  emancipation  does  not  emancipate.  The 
freedman  exchanges  one  thralldom  for  another.  The 
tendencies  of  our  times  are  much  plainer  than  the 
remedies.  It  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  welfare 
of  our  people  that  conflicts  between  capital  and  labor 
should  always  end  in  the  primitive  barbarism  of  a 
condition  of  war,  with  either  the  citizen  soldiers  un- 
der arms  or  semi-military  private  organizations  doing 
police  duty.  Educate,  educate,  educate,  is  the  na- 
tional necessity.  It  takes  time  for  emigrants  coming 
to  our  shores  to  fully  absorb  the  principles  of  Amer- 
ican liberty,  but  their  children  can  be  so  firmly 
grounded  in  its  truths  in  the  schools  that  they  will 
be  the  best  and  bravest  citizens  of  the  state. 

The  grand  mission  of  institutions  like  Cornell 
is  the  training  and  graduating  of  men  of  indepen- 
dent thought  and  action.  The  self-reliance  which 
comes  from  the  conscious  mastery  of  one's  calling  is 
independence,  and  when  supplemented  by  the  teach- 
ings and  touch  of  the  university  is  liberty.  Every 
youth  who  goes  out  into  the  world  from  any  depart- 


38  TIIK    ADl)RI-:SSIvS. 

iiiciit  of  this  college  becomes  in  the  coiiiiiiuiiity 
where  he  settles  an  inflnence  for  right  thinking  and 
right  acting.  He  is  a  standard  for  better  work  in 
his  vocation.  One  of  the  difficnlties  of  onr  sitnation 
is  the  mass  of  half  educated  and  badly  trained 
young  men  who  come  every  year  from  our  schools. 
Their  equipment  is  too  superficial  for  the  professions 
or  for  business,  and  they  have  no  preparation  for  the 
trades.  They  emphasize  by  their  necessities  and 
their  careers  the  call  for  every  possible  extension  of 
the  new  learning.  It  is  both  a  commentary  upon 
the  public  necessit}^  for  education  and  a  comfort  for 
the  future  that  there  can  be  found  in  the  ranks  of 
socialism  or  anarchy  in  the  United  States  scarcely  a 
single  graduate  of  any  high  school — classical,  tech- 
nological, or  manual-training. 

Cornell  gives  free  education  to  nearly  six  hun- 
dred students,  the  representatives  of  the  assembly 
districts  of  the  state  of  New  York.  In  doing  this 
she  fulfills  in  fourfold  measure  the  spirit  and  letter 
of  her  foundation.  But  the  I^mpire  State  should  not 
permit  her  sons  to  be  a  drain  upon  resources  which 
have  been  so  wisely  husbanded  and  so  admirabl}-  ad- 
ministered. It  should  generously  recognize  the 
splendid  work  done  at  Cornell  and  appropriate  the 
means  for  the  tuition  of  those  who  are  here  and 
those  who  wish  to  come.  Then  there  would  grow  up 
on  the  shores  of  Cayuga  lake  a  student  republic 
rivaling  those  which  greeted  the  middle-age  revival 
of  learning  and   instinct   with    the  life   and  energ}' 


MR.    DKPKW'S   ORATIOX.  39 

and  aspirations  of  to-da}^  The  pictnre  and  the  pros- 
pect shonld  thrill  the  people  of  New  York  with  loyal 
pride. 

A  few  years  ago  the  University  of  Heidelberg- 
celebrated  its  five-hnndredth  anniversary.  The  heir 
to  the  throne  of  the  German  empire  presided. 
Princes  responded  to  the  sentiments,  and  aronnd  the 
great  hall  hnng  the  banners  and  armorial  devices 
of  the  hereditary  rnlers  of  the  land.  The  spectacle 
was  brilliant  and  imposing,  and  the  dazzling  displa}^ 
of  the  emblems  of  rank  and  power  made  it  a  memo- 
rable pageant.  When  yonr  eyes  had  become  accns- 
tomed  to  the  sheen  of  the  armor  and  weapons  and 
jewels,  and  yonr  ears  to  the  blare  of  the  trumpets, 
you  instinctively  queried.  What  lesson  of  these  five 
centuries  does  this  ceremonial  teach  ?  You  saw  the 
baron  in  his  castle  on  the  Rhine,  with  his  vassals  at 
his  feet ;  you  felt  the  power  and  glory  of  Teutonic 
valor  and  achievements ;  you  knew  of  the  scholars 
and  learned  men  who  had  passed  the  portals  of  the 
university:  but  you  felt  that  the  political,  the  social, 
and  the  material  conditions  of  the  age  of  invention 
and  democracy  were  not  represented. 

It  is  the  proud  boast  of  Cornell  that  she  is  not 
only  abreast  with  the  times,  but  is  leading  them. 
No  traditions  retard  her  growth,  and  no  legends  ob- 
scure for  her  the  truth.  She  feels  the  movement  of 
the  intellectual  activities  of  the  country  and  the 
throbbing  pulse  of  our  industrial  development.  Her 
twenty-five  years  are  coincident  with  the  unparalleled 


40  THE  ADDRESSES. 

progress  of  the  United  States  since  the  close  of  the 
civil  war,  and  her  wonderful  growth  has  been  stimu- 
lated by  its  impulse. 

Said  Mr.  Gladstone  to  me:  "If  I  had  to  select 
from  all  the  half-centuries  of  recorded  time  the  fifty 
years  in  which  to  pass  my  active  life,  I  would  choose 
the  fifty  years  in  which  I  have  worked.  It  has  been 
fifty  3^ears  of  emancipation."  What  is  true  of  this 
most  remarkable  and  potential  statesman  is  still  more 
applicable  to  this  university.  Her  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury is  the  high-w^ater  mark  of  intellectual  activity, 
scientific  discovery,  realization  of  liberty,  and  mate- 
rial progress.  Hero-worship  is  the  happiness  and 
inspiration  of  youth,  and  we  have  for  this  period 
Lincoln  and  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  in 
statesmanship  and  arms  in  our  own  country,  and 
Gladstone,  Bismarck,  Von  Moltke,  Thiers,  Cavour, 
and  Gambetta  abroad.  Literature  has  been  enriched 
by  Ruskin  and  Hawthorne,  Taine  and  Emerson, 
Longfellow  and  Tennyson,  Bancroft  and  Green, 
Whittier,  Lowell,  and  Holmes.  Scholars  and  scien- 
tists, too  numerous  for  record  in  the  limits  of  this 
address,  have  irradiated  this  era  with  the  results  of 
their  genius. 

Edison  and  Bell  and  others  have  demonstrated 
the  limitless  possibilities  of  electricity.  The  spirit 
of  invention  and  discovery  has  broken  down  the 
doors  which  safe-guarded  the  secrets  of  nature  and 
let  loose  the  imprisoned  forces  of  resistless  energy 
and  remorseless  power  and  tamed  and  trained  them 


MR.    DErKw'vS    ORATION,  4 1 

to  the  service  of  man.  The  emancipation  of  the 
slave  and  the  reconstrnction  of  the  states,  the  ednca- 
tion  of  the  freednien  and  the  restoration  of  national 
unity  and  national  patriotism,  are  our  object  lessons 
in  philanthropy  and  statecraft  of  priceless  value  to 
this  and  coming  generations. 

In  the  heroic  age  its  honors  and  renown  were 
for  those  who  had  been  most  successful  in  killing 
their  fellow  human  beings.  In  our  prosaic  one,  they 
are  reserved  for  those  who  do  most  and  best  to  pre- 
serve the  lives,  improve  the  health,  increase  the  hap- 
piness, and  promote  the  welfare  of  the  men  and 
women  of  the  present  and  the  future.  Philanthropy 
has  by  natural  evolution  grown  from  an  impulse  to  a 
science.  The  indiscriminate  giving  which  pauper- 
ized has  become  the  wise  endowment  for  restoration 
to  independence  or  the  training  for  leadership.  Our 
benefactions  assume  two  forms,  the  one  for  repairs 
and  the  other  for  construction.  In  the  first  are  hos- 
pitals, homes,  and  asylums,  and  in  the  second  the 
school,  the  college,  the  university,  and  the  library. 
Money  yields  its  most  satisfactory  return  when  it  is 
spent  to  open  and  smooth  the  pathways  of  youth  to 
opportunity  and  careers.  The  investment  com- 
pounds, and  in  compounding  reduplicates  its  benefi- 
cence with  each  generation  of  students,  while  the 
benefactor  has  his  fame  freshened  and  enlarged  by 
every  recurring  class  till  the  end  of  time. 

The  enduring  monuments  of  those  who  have 
promoted  the  growth  of  Cornell  are  fast  filling  the 


42  THE    ADDREvSSES. 

campus.  The}'  are  the  buildings  devoted  to  liberal 
learning  which  the}^  have  erected  or  furnished  and 
endowed.  Next  to  the  name  of  the  founder  comes 
the  benefactor  Henry  W.  Sage,  and  then  that  noble, 
far-sighted,  and  unselfish  woman  whose  eyes  closed 
in  death  in  the  belief  that  she  had  done  all  she  could 
for  the  university  which  she  loved.  Boardman  and 
Barnes  and  White  and  Sibley  head  the  roll  of  honor, 
which  will  increase  with  the  annual  celebration  of 
the  founder's  da}^ 

"  I  would  found  an  institution  where  any  person 
can  find  instruction  in  anj^  stud}'"  is  the  chart,  the 
compass,  and  the  beacon  light  for  Cornell.  It  shows 
all  the  oceans  and  continents  of  knowledge,  it  points 
the  course  of  safety,  according  as  the  student  would 
sail  close  to  shore  or  fearlessly  venture  upon  the 
boundless  deep,  and  it  warns  him  to  keep  and  per- 
mits him  to  remain  within  the  lines  for  which  he  has 
the  abilit}',  taste,  and  time.  It  is  a  motto  under 
which  the  sons  of  the  laborer  and  the  millionaire,  of 
the  law3'er  and  the  merchant,  of  the  farmer  and  the 
mechanic,  meet  for  the  enjoyment  of  its  equal  gifts 
and  opportunities.  Cornell  rounds  her  first  quarter- 
century  with  a  record  of  growth,  maturit3%  and 
power  unequaled  in  the  histor}^  of  colleges.  Superb 
as  is  her  youth,  it  is  still  only  the  promise  of  the 
splendors  of  her  maturity  and  the  ripened  and  soft- 
ened grandeur  of  her  age. 


MR.  Woodford's  addrk.ss.  43 

At  the  end  of  Mr.  Depew's  oration  President  vScliurnian 
said  : 

We  had  expected  on  this  occasion  to  have  with  us  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  He  cordially  accepted  the  in- 
vitation of  the  University  ;  but  in  a  letter  which  I  hold  in  my 
hand,  dated  September  19th,  Mr.  Cleveland  says  that,  owing 
to  the  condition  of  public  business  in  Washington,  it  will  be 
impossible  for  him  to  be  present  wnth  us.  He  sends  us,  how- 
ever, his  greeting,  which  I  am  sure  you  will  all  be  glad  to  re- 
ciprocate. 

When  the  University  was  opened,  the  State  of  New  York 
was  represented  at  the  exercises  by  her  Lieutenant-Governor. 
From  that  day  to  this,  that  gentleman  has  been  among  our 
warmest  friends,  among  our  most  devoted  Trustees.  He  was 
then  young,  full  of  faith  and  hope,  endowed  with  the  gift  of 
speech,  and  interested  in  public  affairs.  Pie  is  still  a  public 
man,  still  eloquent,  still  sympathetic,  and,  in  spite  of  the  lapse 
of  time,  still  young.  He  will  now  address  you, — the  Hon. 
Stewart  L.  Woodford,  LL.D. 


MR.  WOODFORD'S  ADDRESS. 

My  friends,  I  hardly  dare  trust  myself  to  say  a 
word.  Of  all  the  men  who  stood  at  the  cradle  of 
Cornell  University  only  twenty-five  years  ago,  there 
are  but  two  living  :  Andrew  D.  White,  our  first  Pres- 
ident, now  serving  the  Republic  in  distant  lands,  and 
myself  Ezra  Cornell,  our  founder,  Horace  Gree- 
ley, are  dead.  Erastus  Brooks,  George  W.  Schuyler, 
Sibley,  Barnes,  Boardman,  all  have  gone  across  the 
river.  From  the  tower  above  this  great  library  ring 
the  chimes  that  first  rang  out  that  October  afternoon 


44  THE   ADDRESSES. 

twenty-five  years  ago,  and  she  whose  spirit  voice 
seems  to  speak  to  us  in  those  chimes  is  in  the  better 
land  above.  I  have  no  words.  Heart,  memor}-,  hope, 
are  all  too  full.  Cornell  has  more  than  answered  the 
promise  of  her  childhood — God  grant  that  in  the 
centuries  to  come  she  may  do  good  work,  true  w^ork, 
loj^al  work,  for  education,  for  humanity,  for  the  Re- 
public. 

President  Schunnaii  then  said  :  Cornell  University  is 
one  of  the  sisterhood  of  colleges,  universities,  and  institutions  of 
higher  learning,  over  which  in  the  State  of  New  York  we 
have  that  unique  and  venerable  institution  known  as  the  Uni- 
versity of  the  State  of  New  York.  The  next  speaker  is  the 
Chancellor  of  the  University,  the  Rev.  Anson  J.  Upson,  D.D., 
LL.D. 

CHANCELLOR  UPSON'S  ADDRESS. 

Mr.  Presidejit  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

Personally  I  have  no  right  to  address  this  distin- 
guished audience.  Onl}^  my  official  position  in  the 
educational  system  of  this  state  would  justify  your 
Trustees  in  giving  me  the  privilege  of  representing 
here  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  I  am  encouraged,  however,  by  the  fact  that 
Cornell  University  has  recognized  frequently,  in  the 
most  friendly  way,  the  work  of  our  Board.  It  might 
have  been  otherwise.  The  work  of  the  Regents  is 
supervisor}'  and  nothing  else.  This  institution,  ver}' 
naturallv,  might  have  refused  to  be  thus  supervised. 
It    was   not  chartered   by   the   Regents,  but   by   the 


CHANCELLOR    UPvSON'S   ADDRESS.  45 

Legislature.  Its  endowments,  in  the  beginning,  were 
large,  and  soon  became  much  larger  than  those 
of  any  other  college  in  this  state.  Its  educational 
methods  were  somewhat  peculiar.  All  these  things 
and  others  like  them,  naturally  might  have  created 
and  fostered  a  spirit  of  independence  or  indifference. 
But  Cornell  University  has  shown  no  such  indepen- 
dent spirit.  From  the  beginning,  you  have  courte- 
ously and  lo3''ally  transmitted  to  Albany  very  full 
and  most  suggestive  and  valuable  annual  reports.  In 
the  annual  convocation  of  the  teachers  of  New  York, 
in  the  capitol,  none  of  our  colleges  has  been  more 
frequently  and  fully  represented.  The  Presidents  of 
the  university,  without  exception,  have  honored  us  by 
their  dignified  presence.  They  have  benefited  the 
teachers  of  the  state  by  their  wide  experience  and 
stimulated  them  by  their  inspiriting  eloquence.  Your 
professors  have  contributed  largel}^  to  the  interest 
and  usefulness  of  the  convocation,  by  giving  us  the 
results  of  their  scholarship  in  erudite  and  sometimes 
profound  papers,  and  in  vigorous  and  influential  dis- 
cussion. 

For  all  this  and  much  more,  permit  me  in  the 
name  of  the  Regents  of  the  University  to  express 
our  thanks.  And  you  will  also  permit  us  to  share  in 
the  congratulations  of  this  occasion.  We  would 
unite  with  you  in  paying  deserved  honor  to  the  wor- 
thy examples  embalmed  in  your  history. 

I  need  not  repeat  the  familiar  facts  in  the  life  of 
your  founder  who  gave  you  his  name.     The  whole 


46  THE  ADDREvSSES. 

world  has  recognized  already  his  worth.  As  j'oii, 
Mr.  President,  have  quoted  from  the  historian  Fronde, 
giving  to  the  words  your  own  significant  cndorse- 
meat :  "a  sublime  figure  anywhere,"  says  the  histor- 
ian, "he  seems  to  me  the  most  surprising  and  vener- 
able object  I  have  seen  in  America."  I  need  not  tell 
au}^  of  those  who  hear  me  what  a  broad-minded,  S3^m- 
pathetic,  unselfish,  self-sacrificing,  original  philan- 
thropist he  was.  But  I  may  remind  you  that  all  his 
beneficent  work  was  done  to  give  to  young  men  and 
young  women  the  best  possible  education  ;  and  by 
whom  ?  B}'  a  man  whose  own  early  educational  op- 
portunities were  quite  limited.  What  an  example  is 
this  of  broad-minded  magnanimit}^ !  thus  providing 
for  others  far  more  than  he  himself  had  received ! 

And  Ezra  Cornell  has  not  been  the  only  benefac- 
tor here.  The  names  attached  appropriately  to  these 
libraries,  these  buildings  for  religious  service  and  in- 
struction and  for  legal  education  and  for  scientific 
teaching  in  philosoph}^  and  the  arts ;  and  the  names 
given  appropriately  to  the  various  endowments  of  the 
Universit}' — such  names  as  IMorrill  and  Sage  and 
Siblc}'  and  McGraw  and  Barnes  and  Fayerweather 
and  Boardman — all  these  not  onh'  keep  in  mind  the 
memory  of  3'our  benefactors,  but  they  perpetuate  the 
influence  of  their  noble  example. 

While  I  would  honor  every  one  who  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  usefulness  and  glory  of  this  great  uni- 
versity, I  cannot  den}'  ni3'self  the  privilege,  taking 
advantage  of  his  absence,  of  pa^'ing  deserved  honor 


CHANCELLOR    UPSON'S   ADDRESS.  47 

at  this  time,  to  my  life-long  friend  Andrew  Dickson 
White,  the  intimate  associate  of  Mr.  Cornell  in  the 
organization  of  this  university,  a  munificent  donor 
towards  your  endowments  and  your  library  and  who 
for  seventeen  3'ears  was  your  President.  The  inher- 
itor of  large  wealth,  highly  educated,  he  might  have 
given  himself  up  wholly  to  self-indulgence,  to  the 
refined  enjoj^ments  of  a  dilettante.  Rather,  by  his 
own  preference,  he  devoted  many  years  of  his  life 
largely  to  the  laborious  work  of  education.  Such  an 
example,  as  uncommon  as  it  is  beneficent,  deserves 
ofrateful  recogfuition  here  and  now. 

o  o 

But  this  university,  within  the  past  twenty-five 
years,  has  enriched  the  world  in  other  ways  equally 
essential  to  its  own  life  and  growth.  Many  of  your 
professors  have  increased  the  treasures  of  good  learn- 
ing by  their  published  books  in  philosoph}^,  in  his- 
tory, in  the  sciences  theoretical  and  applied,  in  peda- 
gogy, in  literature  ancient  and  modern. 

And  especially  would  I  congratulate  the  univer- 
sity upon  the  large  number  of  faithful  teachers,  who 
may  or  may  not  have  published  books  ;  but  who  have 
given  to  you  and  j^our  graduates  long  years  of  faith- 
ful service — the  best  years  of  their  lives — with  a  de- 
votion like  that  of  a  sailor  to  his  ship,  or  a  soldier  to 
his  regiment,  or  a  patriot  to  his  country.  All  honor 
to  the  steadfast  devotion  of  your  loyal  instructors, 
not  always  remembered  as  they  should  be  on  occa- 
sions like  the  present ! 

Besides,  many  of  your  educational  methods  have 


4^  THE  ADDRESSES. 

attracted  attention  and  promoted  educational  reform. 
Cornell  University  was  among  the  first,  if  not  the 
very  first,  of  our  colleges  to  recognize  and  practice 
the  principle  that  "  students  should  be  expected  to 
govern  themselves  in  a  spirit  of  manly  self-respect." 
Let  me  congratulate  j-ou  on  the  success  of  this  man- 
ly method.  In  your  collegiate  discipline  and  in  your 
examinations,  you  appeal  to  the  student's  honor. 
You  have  no  proctors.  I  am  glad  to  testif\^  that  your 
example  has  modified,  if  it  has  not  abolished,  in 
many  institutions  a  degrading  and  deceit-encouraging 
method  of  college  government. 

Still  further,  a  true  college,  in  its  spirit,  is  the 
purest  democracy  in  the  world.  In  no  community 
will  a  young  man  be  estimated  at  his  true  value — 
find  his  level — so  soon  as  in  a  college.  This  will  be 
true,  unless  extraneous  circumstances,  such  as  wealth 
or  social  culture  or  the  official  rank  of  members  of 
the  young  man's  family  or  the  reputation  of  his  an- 
cestry, are  permitted  to  interfere  with  the  natural 
characteristics  and  tendencies  of  collegiate  life. 
Now,  in  the  spirit  of  your  founder,  this  has  been  a 
school  for  the  education,  pre-eminently,  of  young 
men  and  young  women  of  limited  means  of  support. 
And  in  the  organization  of  this  universit}^  ''the 
Trustees  pledged  themselves  to  use  every  effort  to 
prevent  any  caste  spirit  in  any  department."  Unless 
I  have  been  misinformed,  their  efforts  have  met,  thus 
far,  with  unprecedented  success.  And  it  is  for  me  a 
matter  of  congratulation  to-day  that  the  example  of 


CHANCELLOR   UPSON'S    ADDRKSvS.  49 

this  institution  has  been  largely  influential  in  re- 
straining, if  not  in  destroying,  such  degrading  and 
destructive  tendencies  in  other  colleges  in  this  and 
in  other  states. 

With  some  experience  and  observation  as  a  col- 
legiate instructor,  you  will  permit  me  to  say  further, 
that,  in  my  judgment,  the  method  of  religious  in- 
struction here  provided  in  Sage  Chapel  is  well  adapt- 
ed to  accomplish  the  best  results.  It  has  been  said 
that  this  listening,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  to  succes- 
sive preachers,  representing  various  forms  of  Chris- 
tian faith,  will  encourage  onl}-  the  habit  of  making 
comparisons  constantl}'.  It  has  been  said  that  this 
habitual  criticism  will  destro}^  the  practical  effect  of 
the  discourses  preached.  There  may  be  some  truth 
in  this.  No  method  can  be  unobjectionable,  wholly. 
But  if  a  single  chaplain  give  instruction  by  himself 
alone,  the  advantage  of  variety  is  lost.  And  I  be- 
lieve that  variety  is  very  attractive  and  interesting, 
especially  to  the  young.  Variety  also  is  more  influ- 
ential practically  than  monotony.  Monotony  cer- 
tainly will  not  prevent  criticism.  It  will  encourage 
it  rather. 

And  so  I  believe  that  in  a  large  institution  like 
this,  which  has  no  distinctive  denominational  affilia- 
tions, and  where  students  of  many  forms  of  faith  are 
assembled, — in  a  large  institution  like  this, — the  es- 
tablishment of  various  ethical  and  denominational 
societies  like  those  established  here,  such  as  "  The 
Baptist  Circle,"  ''The  Brotherhood  of  St.  Andrew," 


50  Tin-:    ADDRKSSES. 

"The  Catholic  Union,"  "The  Methodist  Alliance," 
"  The  Presbyterian  Union " — all  these  will  afford 
abundant  opportunities  for  religious  worship  and  in- 
struction and  for  Christian  activity. 

Few  thoughtful  persons  can  stand  on  this  mag- 
nificent campus,  surrounded  by  these  statel}'  halls, 
amidst  all  these  inspiriting  examples  of  beneficent 
devotion  to  the  good  of  humanity,  rivaling  in  their 
glory  even  the  beaut}'  of  the  fair  landscape  of  valley 
and  lake  and  near  and  distant  hills,  under  a  sky  of 
"everlasting  blue,"  which  nature  here  presents  to  our 
sight, — no  thoughtful  person  can  stand  here  and  not 
ask  himself  what  will  be  the  future  of  this  remarka- 
ble creation,  the  growth  of  only  twent3^-five  years? 
The  inevitable  answer  and  the  encouraging  answer 
will  be :  you  cannot  kill  a  college  :  you  cannot  move 
a  college. 

So  long  as  there  are  young  men  and  young  wom- 
en who  are  not  willing  to  be  ignorant,  so  long  as 
there  are  devoted  teachers  ready  to  give  their  lives  to 
instruction  ;  so  long  will  institutions  like  this  bless 
the  world. 

I  am  not  a  prophet  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  3'et  I 
venture  to  predict  that,  in  all  the  future  centuries  of 
the  life  of  this  university,  there  will  be  no  less  atten- 
tion paid  than  is  now  given  to  classical  stud3^ 
Teachers  and  scholars  here  will  never  find  a  better 
way  than  by  training  in  the  classics,  to  gain  a  vigor- 
ous and  comprehensive  judgment,  a  read}-  and  reten- 
tive mcmor}',  a  sensitive  and  refined  taste. 


CHANCFXLOR   UPSON'S    ADDRKSS.  5 1 

I  venture  to  predict  also  that  hereafter  in  3'onr 
halls  there  will  be  given  no  less  instruction  than  now 
in  religious  truth.  No  sectarian  control,  under 
whatever  name,  liberal  or  orthodox,  it  may  conceal 
itself,  no  such  control  will  be  tolerated  here.  And 
yet,  so  long  as  God  and  man  exist,  so  long  will  in- 
struction be  demanded  and  instruction  continue  to  be 
given,  more  and  more,  in  those  eternal  verities  which 
express  God's  relations  to  us  and  our  relations  to 
Him  and  to  each  other. 

I  do  not  think  either  that  you  will  ever  have  too 
large  a  library.  Thanks  to  the  wisdom  of  your  bene- 
factors, the  library  has  not  been  the  last  thing  thought 
of  in  this  institution,   and  never  will  be  neglected. 

You  wall  not  charge  me  with  reactionism,  if  I 
take  the  liberty  to  predict  also  that  elective  studies  in 
3^our  curriculum,  now  so  free  to  all  who  enter  the 
university,  will  be  more  restricted,  as  experience  may 
teach  that  restriction  is  necessary.  This  great  free 
university  is  not  a  slave  to  its  own  precedents.  No 
college  curriculum  hitherto  has  been  more  open  to 
revision.  It  is  not  impossible  that,  in  order  that 
your  students  may  pursue  profitably  your  courses  of 
study,  the  need  of  more  thorough  previous  disci- 
pline will  become  so  apparent  and  so  urgent,  that  you 
may  increase  and  advance  your  requirements  for  en- 
trance, until  they  shall  equal  the  requirements  for 
graduation  at  other  colleges.  Thus  yours  may  be- 
come the  post-graduate  university  of  the  State  of 
New  York. 


52  THK   ADDRESSES. 

But,  Air.  President,  whatever  educational  methods 
experience  may  teach  us  as  to  tliese  matters  of  de- 
tail, about  which  educational  authorities  ma}^  differ, 
sure  I  am  that  ever}^  institution  in  this  State,  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Board  of  Regents,  has  but  one 
object,  essentially,  and  that  is  to  improve,  in  every 
possible  particular,  its  own  method  of  education. 
No  large  institution  desires  to  crush  out  the  smaller. 
The  small  and  the  great  are  fulfilling  equally  their 
purpose. 

And  yet  in  educational  affairs,  as  in  many  other 
particulars,  we  are  deficient  in  state  pride.  As  a 
people,  in  educational  matters  certainl}-,  we  are  too 
cosmopolitan.  We  love  our  neighbors  better  than 
ourselves.  We  do  not  provide  sufficiently  for  our 
own.  We  give  millions  to  elementary  education.  I 
would  give  no  less  to  the  common  schools  ;  but  high- 
er education,  so  called,  in  this  commonwealth,  has 
cost  the  State — the  people — through  taxation  com- 
paratively nothing.  Each  tax-payer  pays  less  than 
one  cent  a  year  for  so-called  higher  education  !  The 
endowments,  insufficient  as  they  are,  of  high  schools, 
academies,  and  colleges  in  our  State,  have  not  come 
from  the  State,  but  from  lotteries,  private  individuals, 
or  from  the  United  States  Government.  In  this 
matter,  the  people  of  Michigan,  and  the  people  of 
Wisconsin  and  other  western  States  do  much  better 
than  we  do.  In  those  States,  in  "  the  wild  west "  if 
you  please,  the  policy  of  the  people  is  much  more 
liberal  towards  themselves. 


CILWXKLLOR    UI\S0N'S    ADDRI-S.S.  53 

It  is  not  surprising-,  therefore,  that  some  of  onr 
neighbors  of  other  states  estimate  the  value  of  our 
higher  education  by  the  estimate  we  seem  to  put 
upon  it, — by  what  we  give  to  it.  Our  neighbors 
acknowledge  our  commercial  supremacy.  Our  polit- 
ical power  is  admitted.  The  learning  and  wisdom 
of  our  legal  decisions  are  respectfully  recognized. 
And  3'et,  somehow,  many  of  our  near  neighbors,  in 
other  states,  seem  to  think  that  to  live  in  the  State 
of  New  York  is  evidence,  prima  facie  yet  conclu- 
sive evidence,  of  intellectual  inferiority  and  of  com- 
parative ignorance,  or,  at  the  best,  of  incapacity  for 
the  highest  mental  achievements.  I  hope  you  will 
not  doubt  m}''  word :  I  speak  the  plain  truth  when  I 
tell  you  that,  when  I  lived  in  Albanj^  a  few  years 
ago,  a  Boston  teacher  actually  said  to  me,  to  my  very 
face,  "Why,  sir,  I  have  listened  to  you  in  private  con- 
versation and  in  public  addresses,  and  really,  sir,  for 
a  New  Yorker  you  speak  very  good  Bnglish."  You 
ma}^  smile  at  the  absurd  compliment,  but  it  implies 
a  peculiar  state  of  opinion — an  opinion  which  ought 
to  stimulate  us  in  our  educational  work. 

Let  us  say  no  more  that  higher  education  in  this 
State  costs  too  much.  Mr.  President,  the  value  of  a 
thoroughly  educated  man  is  incalculable.  Did  John 
Marshall  cost  the  State  of  Virginia  too  much  ? — Mar- 
shall, whose  education  raised  him  from  an  obscure 
plantation  to  be  a  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States, 
whose  opinions  vitalized  and  perpetuated  the  United 
States   Constitution,  making  it  paramount  and   un- 


54  THK    ADDRESSES. 

changeable  by  ordinary  legislation  ?  Did  Thomas 
Jefferson  cost  the  State  of  Virginia  too  much? — Jef- 
ferson, the  peaceful  purchaser  for  his  country,  for  a 
comparatively  trivial  sum,  of  what  was  then  a  vast, 
unknown  territory  vaguely  called  Louisiana  ;  did 
Thomas  Jefferson  cost  the  State  of  Virginia  too 
much? — Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  of  the  statute  of  Virginia  for  re- 
ligious freedom,  and  the  founder  of  the  University 
of  Virginia ;  himself  a  graduate  of  the  college  of 
William  and  Mary,  in  accordance  with  an  injunction 
left  by  his  father  on  his  death-bed,  a  circumstance 
which  his  son  always  remembered  with  gratitude, 
saying  that,  if  he  had  to  choose  between  the  educa- 
tion and  the  estate  his  father  left  him,  he  would 
choose  the  education  ? 

Did  Daniel  Webster  cost  the  State  of  New  Hamp- 
shire too  much  ? — Webster,  whose  education  at  Dart- 
mouth College  transformed  the  New  Hampshire 
farmer's  boy  into  the  great  constitutional  expounder 
whose  doctrines  preserved  the  integrity  of  the 
Union  ? 

Did  Alexander  Hamilton  cost  the  State  of  New 
York  too  much  ? — Hamilton,  whose  education  at  Co- 
lumbia College  developed  in  him  the  ability'  at  seven- 
teen years  of  age  to  electrify  the  citizens  of  New 
York  City,  in  a  fervid  speech  for  colonial  rights,  and 
afterwards  to  write  the  Federalist  ? 

I  might  ask  similar  questions  with  the  same 
answer  about  the  cost  to  the  State  of  New  York  of 


TROFKvSSOR    CALDWKIJ/S    ADDRRSvS.  55 

the  education  of  DeWitt  Clinton  and  William  H. 
Seward  and  Horatio  Seymour.  To  make  such  in- 
quiries is  needless.  All  these  questions,  each  and 
every  one,  answer  themselves. 

Please  accept,  Mr.  President,  my  thanks  for  3'our 
courteous  patience  in  listening  to  my  words.  And 
permit  me  to  renew  to  yourself  and  your  honored 
colleagues  and  to  the  authorities  and  benefactors  of 
the  university  the  cordial  congratulations  of  the 
Board  of  Regents,  with  expressions  of  our  most  sin- 
cere good  will. 

President  Schuniiaii  then  said  :  The  next  speaker  was  to 
have  been  the  Rev.  Dr.  Potter,  President  of  Hobart  College, 
but  I  regret  to  say  that  at  the  last  moment  he  has  found  him- 
self unavoidably  detained. 

The  eloquent  Chancellor  has  referred  to  the  fact  that  nei- 
ther money  nor  buildings  nor  collections  make  a  Universit)-, 
although  the  Universitj^  without  them  is  impossible.  A  Uni- 
versity exists  for  the  sake  of  the  instruction  of  3'outh  and  the 
enlargement  of  human  knowledge,  and  to  these  ends  those 
things  are  ])ut  instruments  and  means. 

The  work  of  the  Universit}-  is  done  for  men  and  l)}-  men. 
In  this  sense,  the  Faculty  is  the  University.  It  is  therefore 
not  only  appropriate,  but  necessaiy,  considering  the  function 
of  the  Universit3%  that  the  Faculty  should  be  represented  on 
this  occasion  ;  and  I  have  the  pleasure  now  of  presenting  the 
first  professor  ever  appointed  in  Cornell  University,  Dr.  G.  C. 
Caldwell. 

PROFESSOR  CALDWELL'S  ADDRESS. 

On  the  twenty-second  da}'  of  September,  twent}''- 
five    3^ears   ago,   about   a    do/en  men,  of  whom   l)ut 


56  THE   ADDRESSES. 

three  are  now  in  the  Faculty,  assembled  in  a  small 
room  of  the  Cornell  Library  building  down  in  the 
town,  where  the  light  was  almost  as  scanty  as  in  a 
photographer's  dark  room,  and  held  the  first  meeting 
of  the  Faculty  of  Cornell  University.  A  little  later 
other  appointments  were  made,  so  that  the  first  Reg- 
ister gave  a  list  of  twent3'-three  professors,  of  whom 
six  are  now  here.  On  the  sixth  of  October,  the  first 
entrance  examinations  were  held  in  a  large  basement 
room  of  the  same  building,  where  the  supply  of 
light  and  air  was  not  much  more  liberal  than  in  the 
temporary  Faculty  room,  under  the  general  direction 
of  our  first  Registrar,  Dr.  Wilson,  whose  kindly  face 
and  friendly  greeting  would  have  been  sadly  missed 
by  the  older  alumni  on  this  occassion. 

The  English  examinations  were  held  in  one 
corner  of  the  room,  the  examination  in  mathematics 
in  another  corner,  the  geography  in  another,  and, 
when  all  the  corners  were  filled  where  there  was 
light  enough  to  write  b}^,  the  lesser  examinations 
were  sandwiched  in  between.  In  these  examinations 
all  helped ;  a  professor  of  chemistr}^  had  charge  of 
the  orthography.  It  might  have  been  wise  to  have 
first  examined  the  professor  himself  in  that  branch 
of  English  ;  indeed,  the  earliest  records  of  the  Fac- 
ulty present  incontrovertible  evidence  that  the  spell- 
ing of  at  least  one  of  its  members  was  not  altogether 
beyond  criticism.  But  there  was  no  time  for  au}^ 
such  test  of  the  abilit}'  of  the  examiners  to  do  the 
work  assigned  to  them,  and  they  had  to  be  taken  on 


PROFESSOR  cai.d\vi<:ll\s  ADDRKSS.  57 

trust.  A  professor  appointed  to  teach  in  one  of  the 
departments  of  natural  liistory  had,  I  believe,  to  look 
after  the  examination  in  algebra ;  and  so  one  and 
another  of  ns  was  temporarily  drafted  into  this  un- 
anticipated service. 

The  crudity  of  this  arrangement  for  the  entrance 
examinations,  as  compared  with  the  present  meth- 
ods, was  no  greater  than  the  crudity  of  everything 
else  in  those  da3^s.  Rickety  barns,  and  slovenly 
barn-3^ards  offended  the  senses  where  the  extension 
of  Sibley  College  is  now  going  up ;  the  second  uni- 
versity building,  now  called  White  Hall,  simply  pro- 
truded out  of  an  excavation,  the  top  of  which  reached 
nearly  to  the  second-story  windows  at  one  end.  The 
ventilation  of  the  chemical  laboratory,  in  the  base- 
ment of  Morrill  Hall,  was  partly  into  the  library  and 
reading  room  above  it ;  readers  there,  not  being 
chemists,  did  not  find  the  chemical  odors  agreeable. 
An  ancient,  Virginia  rail  fence  traversed  the  site  of 
this  building  and  its  neighbor,  Boardman  Hall ;  the 
minutes  of  the  Faculty  show  that  before  the  end  of 
the  first  year  the  modest  request  was  made  of  the 
Founder  of  the  University,  that  he  permit  said  fence 
to  be  moved  150  feet  further  to  the  south,  in  order 
that  there  might  be  a  sufficiently  large  piece  of  level 
ground  adjoining  the  campus  for  the  military  evolu- 
tions, and  for  ball  games. 

Bridges,  sidewalks,  and  even  a  road  between  the 
one  university  building  and  Cascadilla,  the  one  home 
where  almost  everybody  connected  with  the  Univer- 


58  Till':    ADDRKvSSKvS. 

sit}'  lived,  cither  did  not  exist  at  all,  or  were  only 
partially  completed.  It  was  a  long  time  before 
the  multitude  of  foot-tracks  was  obliterated,  made  by 
the  passing  of  teachers  and  students  down  and  up 
the  banks  of  the  ravine  north  of  the  site  of  the 
gymnasium  ;  when  snow^,  slush,  and  mud  alternated 
with  each  other  in  November,  even  a  professor  some- 
times forgot  his  dignity  and  slid  down  the  bank,  and 
b}^  inadvertence  not  always  all  the  way  down  on  his 
feet,  either ;  the  hearty  sympathy  bestowed  upon 
such  an  unfortunate  by  student  spectators  can  be 
imagined,  if  not  believed  in. 

What  those  teachers  and  students  would  have 
done  without  Cascadilla  for  shelter  it  wa)uld  be  hard 
to  say ;  for  the  people  of  the  towai  had  apj^arently 
not  then  learned  that  there  was  money  in  taking 
boarders ;  nor  were  there  hardly  more  than  a  dozen 
dwelling  houses  nearer  the  University  than  half-way 
up  East  Hill.  So  Cascadilla  was  full  from  basement 
to  attic  ;  and  a  professor  w^ho  had  not  lived  there  at 
all  was,  in  later  times,  hardly  considered  b}'  his  col- 
leagues as  having  fully  earned  his  right  to  be  a  pro- 
fessor in  the  University. 

Of  that  original  Faculty  three  have  died :  the 
genial  William  Charles  Cleveland,  before  he  had  had 
a  fair  opportunity  to  develop  his  department  of  civil 
engineering  at  all ;  Evan  Wilhelm  Evans,  a  man  of 
few  words,  but  words  ahvays  to  the  point,  and  most 
serviceable  in  Faculty  councils ;  enthusiastic  Charles 
Frederick  Hartt,  for  whom  the  splendid  opportunity- 


PROFESSOR   CALDWiaiAs    ADDRICSS.  59 

to  carry  on  investigations  in  Brazil  for  a  time,  in  liis 
chosen  field  of  work,  was  too  tempting  to  be  resisted, 
and  in  which  he  sacrificed  his  life ;  and  mention 
should  not  be  omitted  in  this  connection  of  Charles 
Chauncey  Shackford,  whose  portrait  a  grateful  class 
placed  in  our  library ;  though  not  of  the  original 
Faculty,  he  came  in  so  early  as  to  be  almost  as  fully 
identified  with  the  first  beginnings  of  the  life  of  the 
University  as  those  of  us  who  began  our  work  only 
three  years  earlier. 

At  the  beginning  there  were  also  with  us  as  lec- 
turers three  of  the  most  eminent  and  delightful  men 
then  living,  Louis  Agassiz,  James  Russell  Lowell, 
and  George  William  Curtis,  all  now  dead  also ;  by 
their  presence  and  their  lectures,  they  added  greatly 
to  the  interest  of  the  beginning  of  that  opening 
year,  students  and  the  people  of  the  town  crowding 
to  hear  them  in  Library  Hall — as  well  they  might, 
for  no  such  treat  has  since  been  offered  here  in  so 
brief  a  time. 

With  that  small  Faculty  meeting  in  a  back  room 
of  Library  Hall,  and  those  hurried  examinations  in 
the  dim  basement  near  by,  Cornell  University  start- 
ed out  to  do  great  things,  under  the  enthusiastic  and 
hopeful  lead  of  Andrew  D.  White,  who  of  all  others 
among  the  living  should  be  here  on  this  anniver- 
sary. He  and  the  ever  honored  Founder  of  the 
University  never,  I  believe,  even  in  her  darkest  days, 
faltered  in  their  confidence  that  she  would  do  great 
things.     That  confidence  is  fully  justified  ;  the  thou- 


6o  THK   ADDRESSES. 

sand  and  more  stndcnts  that  thc}-  so  undoubtingly 
predicted  came  sooner  than  at  least  many  of  ns 
dreamed  that  it  wonld  ;  and  so  manifest  is  her  des- 
tiny, apparently,  that  the  nnniber  goes  climbing 
steadily  upward  to  the  tw^o  thousand  mark,  in  spite 
of  business  depressions  and  panics. 

That  liberality  in  all  things,  which  was  made  so 
prominent  a  feature  in  the  very  charter  of  the  Uni- 
versity, has  been  cordially  accepted  by  the  Faculty 
from  the  beginning  as  its  policy.  Men  of  all  creeds 
and  parties  have  worked  together  without  question  as 
to  each  other's  views  on  religion  or  politics.  But  this 
liberality  has  not  meant  to  them  indifference  in  re- 
ligious matters ;  the  University  Christian  Associa- 
tion has  become  one  of  the  strongest  in  the  country, 
partly  through  the  cordial  co-operation  of  members 
of  the  Faculty ;  and  they  have,  besides,  done  their 
full  share  for  the  support  of  religious  organizations 
in  the  town.  The  largest  measure  of  personal  free- 
dom consistent  with  the  best  welfare  of  the  students 
has  been  allowed.  Cordial  relations  have  been  main- 
tained with  the  public  school  system  of  the  State, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  University  has  contribu- 
ted largely  towards  the  gradual  elevation  of  the 
standard  of  education  throughout  the  State,  in  pro- 
portion as  its  own  standards  have  been  raised  in 
like  gradual  manner. 

Co-education,  even  if  not  heartily  endorsed  by 
all,  has  nevertheless  been  given  a  fair  trial.  With 
its  first  appearance  in  the  University  I  was  perhaps 


PROFESSOR   CALDWELL'S   ADDRESS.  6 1 

somewhat  more  familiar  than  many  of  my  colleagnes. 
A  more  fortnnate  selection  could  not  have  been  made 
for  its  introduction  than  Miss  Eastman,  who,  before 
its  legal  authorization  by  the  Trustees,  pursued  her 
work  in  chemistry  at  her  place  in  the  laboratory,  in 
a  dignified  and  unassuming  way  that  won  the  respect 
of  all  her  teachers.  Being  afterwards  allowed  by 
the  Faculty  to  present  her  work  done  in  varioiis  de- 
partments prior  to  actual  admission  of  women  as  stu- 
dents, she  was  able  to  graduate  in  1S73,  after  only 
four  terms  of  attendance  as  a  regular  student. 

In  this  spirit  of  liberality  the  Faculty  did  all  it 
could,  consistently  with  what  the  best  interests  of 
the  real  educational  work  of  the  University  seemed 
to  require,  to  help  in  carrying  out  the  Founder's 
cherished  idea  that  self-support  of  students  by  labor 
of  some  kind  shall  be  a  leading  feature  of  the  Uni- 
versity. This  idea  had  made  a  strong  impression  on 
young  men  seeking  an  education,  and  even  on  some 
seeking  a  livelihood  besides.  One  of  these  wrote  to 
inquire  if,  besides  supporting  himself,  he  could  also 
support  his  mother  and  sister  while  getting  his  edu- 
cation. 

Mr.  Cornell  wished  to  see  some  kind  of  a  factory 
on  the  university  grounds,  where  all  students  desir- 
ing employment  would  find  it.  But  all  experienced 
educators  in  the  Faculty  knew  that  self-support 
while  pursuing  a  college  course  had  been  too  often  a 
failure,  to  leave  any  hope  of  its  success  here,  except 
in  a  few  cases  combining  unusual  pluck  and  unusual 


62  THE  ADDRKvSSEvS. 

ability  to  learn.  Much  to  the  disappointment  of  Mr. 
Cornell,  all  schemes  of  this  kind  had  to  be  soon 
abandoned. 

In  the  relations  of  the  Faculty  to  the  Trustees 
and  its  Executive  Committee,  there  has  been  from 
the  beginning  that  quiet  confidence  of  each  body 
that  the  other  was  doing  all  it  could,  in  this  same 
liberal  spirit,  for  the  promotion  of  the  best  interests 
of  the  University ;  and  this  mutual  confidence  has 
fostered  a  cordial  feeling  between  these  two  organiza- 
tions, both  alike  vitally  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
the  University,  that  of  itself  cannot  but  have  con- 
tributed much  towards  the  grand  success  that  has 
already  been  attained  in  so  short  a  time. 

I  am  supposed  to  speak  on  this  occasion  for  the 
Faculty  as  it  is  at  present.  But  this  Faculty  num- 
bers seventy,  while  there  are  hardty  more  than  a 
dozen  of  us  here  who  toiled  through  that  early  period 
of  the  life  of  the  University.  It  were  a  far  easier 
matter  to  speak  as  might  be  expected  of  me  by  the 
Faculty  as  a  whole,  if  a  larger  proportion  of  those 
whom  I  represent  had  been  with  me  then.  What  I 
naturally  feel  is  not  as  the}-  feel  who,  in  all  the  vigor 
of  a  fresh  manhood,  have  within  these  later  j-ears 
begun  their  career  here,  with  prospects  of  success 
in  the  winning  of  high  professional  rank  much  more 
certain  in  their  promise  than  appeared  before  us 
when  we  began  our  work.  Only  with  the  help 
of  a  vivid  imagination  can  the  younger  men  of  to- 
day create  for  themselves  a  truthful  picture  of  the 


PROFESSOR   CALDWELL'S   ADDRESS.  63 

University  as  it  was  in  our  first  days.  Tlic}^  may 
have  good  ground  for  expecting  tliat,  when  the  next 
quarter-centennial  conies  to  be  celebrated,  the  Uni- 
versity will  be  as  much  greater  and  more  prosperous 
than  now,  as  it  is  now  greater  and  more  prosperous 
than  it  was  at  the  outset  and  for  many  years  after- 
wards. To  us  who  know  so  well  what  it  was  and 
what  it  is,  the  realization  of  any  such  great  expecta- 
tions seems  beyond  a  reasonable  possibility. 

Many  of  my  younger  colleagues  may  take  part 
in  the  jubilation  of  19 18,  and  look  back  on  twenty- 
five  years  of  successful  work  accomplished,  that  gave 
them  happiness  in  the  doing  of  it,  and  brought  them 
honor  and  fame  as  further  reward  ;  we  their  old  asso- 
ciates heartily  wish  all  this  for  them.  But,  even 
while  wishing  it,  our  hearts  cannot  but  be  saddened 
by  the  thought  that  twenty-five  years  added  to  our 
lives,  if  so  much  it  may  be,  means  a  very  different 
thing  for  us ;  in  the  inevitable  course  of  events  it 
means  that  at  least  some  of  us  will  have  been  obliged 
to  give  up  our  places  to  others,  fresher  and  more  vig- 
orous in  body  and  mind — to  give  up  to  them  the 
rooms,  the  haunts,  and  the  pleasant  homes  on  this 
beautiful  campus,  all  made  ver}^  dear  to  us  b}^  the 
happy  associations  of  many  years.  But  so  it  must  be 
everywhere — the  older  making  way  for  the  younger, 
so  that  the  work  of  the  world  shall  be  ever  fresh  and 
vigorous ;  and  it  would  be  unreasonable,  and  only  a 
selfish  contention  against  the  inevitable,  if  we  should 
not    most  cordially  wish    for    those    who    take    our 


64  THK   ADDRESSKvS. 

places,  when  \vc  shall  no  longer  be  deemed  able  to  fill 
tlieni  with  sufiicient  credit  to  the  Universit}^,  all  the 
snccess  they  can  attain  with  the  far  more  ample 
means  to  sustain  them  than  fell  to  our  lot  during  the 
larger  part  of  our  first  quarter  of  a  century. 

In  return,  may  we  not  ask  them  to  remember 
us  kindl}^  at  that  next  quarter-centennial,  and  allow 
for  us  at  least  some  share  of  the  glory  for  what  the 
University  may  then  have  come  to  be,  in  that  we 
helped  to  launch  it  on  its  career,  and  with  an  abiding 
faith  in  its  success  helped  to  carry  it  through  a 
period  in  its  history  in  all  probability  far  more  criti- 
cal, and  fraught  with  danger  to  its  very  existence, 
than  any  other  period  ever  will  be. 

President  Scliurmaii  said  :  The  first  speaker  to-day  com- 
mented on  the  curriculum  of  our  University  and  the  variety  of 
the  professional  callings  for  which  men  are  fitted  here.  That 
very  fact  created  a  difficulty  for  the  Committee  of  Arrange- 
ments in  selecting  a  representative  of  the  student  body,  old 
students,  and  alumni.  The  speaker  whom  we  have  chosen 
has  rendered  distinguished  services,  both  to  his  city  and  to  the 
nation,  in  journalism,  in  politics,  in  education,  in  finance.  He 
is  still  a  leader  in  the  world  of  business  and  a  Member  of  Con- 
gress,— the  Hon.  Jo.sepli  C.  Hendrix. 

MR.  HENDRIX'S  ADDRESS. 

Mr.  President^  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

An  old  student  of  the  early  seventies  comes  upon 
this  scene,  after  an  absence  of  twent}^  years,  to  be 
delighted  and  to  be  amazed.     The    Yale   freshman 


MR.    HKNDRIX'S    ADDRKSS.  65 

who  ill  his  endeavors  to  subdue  the  English  hiii- 
giiage  ill  a  coniposition-exercise  wrote,  "The  Senator 
stood  speechless  with  amazement,"  was  rebuked  by 
his  professor,  who  said:  "My  boy,  always  get  your 
facts  straight.  A  Senator  may  stand  amazed,  but 
speechless — never."  It  is  not  permitted  to  me  to  be 
speechless  in  amazement,  as  I  view  the  wonderful 
progress  of  Cornell,  but  perhaps  the  reminiscences 
of  the  old  da3^s  may  pass  in  part  for  a  speech.  How 
they  come  back — and  what  a  contrast !  Wh}',  I 
landed  here  on  a  freight  train  !  It  wound  its  melan- 
choly way  along  a  geometrical  diagram  on  3''onder 
hill-side,  and  it  seemed  to  be  sinking  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  soft-looking  valley  below  the  further 
it  went ;  and,  when  it  came  to  a  stand-still  and  I 
alighted,  1113^  future  college  home — then  two  stone 
buildings — seemed  not  only  far  off,  but  far  up.  You 
can  imagine  the  feelings  of  a  child  of  the  prairie,  as 
he  measured  with  his  e3^e  the  distance  that  he  had  to 
climb  with  his  feet.  Of  course  I  thought  it  best  to 
walk  on  the  level  until  I  reached  a  point  opposite  the 
buildings,  but  this  brought  me  to  the  foot  of  a  steep 
sand-bank.  My  first  thought  was,  "  How  am  I  ever 
to  get  up  ?  "  I  literall3'^  approached  Cornell  on  1113^ 
hands  and  knees.  At  the  top  of  this  first  terrace,  an 
Ithacan  peasant  informed  me  that  it  was  easier  to 
reach  Cornell  through  a  grave-yard.  When  I  en- 
countered the  pundits  at  the  gates  holding  entrance- 
examinations  my  next  thought  was,  "  How  am  I  ever 
to  get  in  ?  "     When  I  did  get  iu,  confronted  b3^  a  con- 


66  THE   ADDRKSSEvS. 

dition  and  not  by  any  theory,  I  thought,  "  How  am  I 
ever  to  get  through  ?  "  Later  on,  when  some  precon- 
ceived and  fondly  cherished  scientific  notions  which 
I  brought  from  the  West  proved  unacceptable  to  ni}'' 
teachers,  my  thought  was,  "  How  am  I  ever  to  get 
out?"  The  Faculty  had  a  way  of  making  this  rea- 
sonably easy.  Then  I  thought,  "  How  am  I  ever  to 
get  away  ?  "  The  luxury  of  a  railroad  pass  and  the 
friendly  loan  of  a  ten-dollar  bill  enabled  me  to  get  to 
New  York,  where  there  was  a  budding  demand  for 
college  men  in  journalism,  the  preference  being  for 
those  with  not  too  much  education — not  for  men  edu- 
cated beyond  their  intellects,  as  the  Mugwumps  are 
said  to  be.  As  this  hill-climbing  and  the  experience 
with  all  of  the  discomforts  of  Cornell  in  its  carl}'  days 
had  made  me  able-bodied  and  given  me  great  powers 
of  endurance,  I  was  assigned  to  report  the  speeches 
of  Chauncey  M.  Depew.  I  am  glad  to  get  back  and 
look  over  these  scenes  again.  I  can  but  wonder  now 
that  any  young  man  came  here  in  those  early  days  ; 
for  going  to  college  is  a  serious  epoch  in  any  man's 
life.  A  student  does  not  go  to  college  like  Mr.  De- 
pew does  nowadays,  by  stepping  into  his  private  car 
and  being  whirled  along  amid  surroundings  of  com- 
fort. Oh  no  !  He  must  get  his  parents  into  a  will- 
ing mood  ;  and  in  the  day  of  the  ascendanc}-  of  de- 
nominational colleges  this  was  not  so  easy.  Colleges 
had  long  tentacles  over  the  land,  drawing  j^oung  men 
to  them,  along  lines  of  religious,  sectional,  or  local 
preferences.     The  young  men  who  came  here  were 


MR.    HENDRIX'S    ADDRESS.  67 

accordingly  of  an  adventurous  type,  earnest,  self- 
centered,  determined.  They  made  up  a  strong  body 
of  3'oung  men.  Some  came  to  work,  and  they 
worked  as  best  they  could  here  while  studying.  The 
influences  about  them  were  democratic  and  helpful. 
We  had  the  silent  old  Quaker  founder  alive  then, 
and  it  was  no  unusual  thing  to  see  him  among  the 
bo3's,  standing  over  them  like  a  fond  and  anxious 
father.  Andrew  D.  White  had  a  friendly  word  for 
all  who  approached  him,  and  no  old  student  will  for- 
get Goldwin  Smith — a  3^oung  Oxford  professor  who 
left  the  comfort  and  ease  of  a  professorship  at  an  an- 
cient seat  of  learning  to  come  to  the  frontier  life  on 
the  outposts  of  the  new  education  in  America,  and 
was  to  all  of  us  a  great-hearted  elder  brother.  He 
shared  in  the  discomforts  of  the  early  days,  but  was 
the  most  undaunted  spirit  among  us  all.  How  the 
scene  has  changed  !  Here  is  magic  indeed.  Instead 
of  the  small  beginning,  here  is  a  luxury  of  equip- 
ment,— and,  all  about  us,  cathedrals  of  learning. 
How  we  old  students  envy  the  new  ones  and  wish  we 
were  bo3's  again.  The  children  of  this  Alma  Mater 
are  scattered  far  and  wide.  I  cannot  assume  to 
speak  for  them,  for  I  bear  no  credentials  from  the 
Alumni.  I  am  one  of  the  half-baked,  but  I  am  all 
the  more  free  to  tell  you,  Mr.  President,  that  where 
the  world's  work  is  being  done,  amid  the  stir,  the 
vigor,  and  the  activity  of  our  industrial  civilization, 
the  men  from  Cornell  are  doing  full  duty,  such  as 
men  do  who  are  educated  for  the  time  in  which  the3' 


68  THK    ADDRKSSKS. 

live,  and  who  approach  the  affairs  of  men  with  the 
confidence  of  those  whose  attitnde  toward  life  as  it  is 
has  never  become  warped  or  distorted.  They  cher- 
ish fondly  sentiments  of  gratitude  toward  their  col- 
lege and  the  loft}'  pnrpose  which  has  crowned  it 
from  the  ontset.  As  they  pass  along  life's  path, 
achieving  and  conqnering,  the}^  may  sometimes  have 
presented  to  them,  by  way  of  contrast,  the  gentle 
and  affectionate  favor  of  other  colleges  as  they  be- 
stow npon  their  representatives  the  blue  ribbons  of 
distinction  ;  but,  if  Cornell  is  the  Spartan  mother, 
her  boys  feel  that  she  establishes  a  plane  of  self- 
respect  and  independence,  whereon  they  nia}^  stand 
free  to  approach  her  either  in  love  or  reason  as  the 
passing  years  and  occasions  may  warrant.  Rest  as- 
sured that  sentiments  worthy  of  manly  men  abide 
with  those  who  have  gone  hence,  endowed  by  the  rich 
gifts  which  this  institution  bestows,  and  that,  as  the 
old  Cornell  students  busy  themselves  with  the  affairs 
of  men,  the  old  song  which  used  to  wake  this  cam- 
pus keeps  saying  for  them  : 

"  We  honor  thee,  Cornell, 
We  honor  thee,  Cornell, 
While  breezes  blow  and  waters  flow. 
We  honor  thee,  Cornell." 

President  Schurman  said  :  The  next  exercise  is  the  pre- 
sentation of  coninieniorative  volumes, — first  to  Professor  Burt 
G.  Wilder,  on  behalf  of  his  furnier  students,  by  Dr.  Theobald 
Smith. 


DR.    smith's    presentation.  69 

DR.  SMITH'S    PRESENTATION. 
Professor  Burt  G.  Wilder : 

The  very  pleasant  task  has  been  assigned  me  to 
present  to  yon  to-day,  on  the  happy  and  snccessfnl 
close  of  a  qnarter-centnry  of  service  in  this  nniver- 
sity,  the  congratnlations  and  good  wishes  of  your 
former  students.  To  make  their  expression  of  re- 
gard toward  their  teacher  something  more  than  a 
matter  of  mere  form,  this  volume  has  been  put  into 
my  hands  to  present  to  you.  It  is  made  up  of  original 
contributions  to  science  from  fifteen  of  your  former 
pupils.  Its  dedication  reads  as  follows :  "To  Burt 
Green  Wilder,  B.S.,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Physiology, 
Vertebrate  Zoology,  and  Neurology  in  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, this  volume  is  dedicated  by  his  former  pupils 
as  a  testimonial  of  their  appreciation  of  his  unselfish 
devotion  to  the  University,  and  in  grateful  remem- 
brance of  the  inspiration  of  his  teaching  and  exam- 
ple." 

This  dedication  will  leave  no  doubt  in  your  mind 
concerning  the  character  of  this  volume.  It  is  what 
has  been  known  for  some  time  in  German  univer- 
sities as  a  Festschrift,  It  is  a  newcomer  to  American 
university  life,  and  as  yet  without  a  fitting  name. 

We  might  have  couched  our  congratulations  in 
some  form  which  would  have  been  of  more  personal 
value  to  you,  or  which  would  have  tended  to  more 
display  and  less  labor  on  our  part,  or  which  would 
have  included  as  active  participants  a  larger  number 
of  the  3261   students  who,  at  one  time  or  another, 


JO  THE   ADDRESSES. 

have  come  under  your  personal  instruction.  But  we 
assumed  that  the  form  chosen  wcnild  best  serve  our 
Universit}'  and  meet  your  cordial  approval  at  the 
same  time.  We  knew  that  the  most  unselfish,  the 
most  widely  useful  offering  would  reflect  best  your 
attitude  toward  others.  Our  gift  is  therefore  one 
which,  inspired  by  your  teaching  and  brought  to  suc- 
cessful completion  in  contemplation  of  the  pleasure 
and  satisfaction  it  was  to  bring  you,  is  yet  of  no 
more  value  to  you  than  to  any  other  person  who  is  in 
a  position  to  make  use  of  its  contents. 

But  the  lesson  of  unselfishness  is  not  the  one  we 
intended  to  emphasize.  This  volume  has  a  few  other 
thoughts  to  express,  which  I  shall  try,  however  inad- 
equately, to  voice  for  its  authors. 

It  is,  first  of  all,  a  witness  to  the  fact  that  orig- 
inal research  has  always  been  an  integral  part  of 
your  work.  However  insignificant  your  facilities, 
however  crowded  your  quarters,  however  burdensome 
the  instruction,  the  long  list  of  articles,  monographs, 
and  books  prefixed  to  this  volume,  bears  ample  testi- 
mony that  you  did  not  relinquish  for  a  moment  the 
development  of  new  ideas  under  circumstances  which 
would  have  discouraged  niau}^  from  rising  above  the 
level  of  a  commonplace  routine.  It  has  been  said 
that  it  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  us  that  3^our  labora- 
tories were  so  small  and  crowded,  because  all  of  3'our 
work  was  done  in  the  presence  of  vour  pupils,  and 
we  could  not  very  well  escape  the  infection  of  3'our 
enthusiasm.     This  ma}'  be  true,  but  we  would  not 


DR.  .smith's  prrsrntation.  71 

recommend  therefore  the  old  j-egime^  any  more  than 
hygiene  would  recommend  that  all  the  members  of  a 
family  should  live  in  the  same  room  if  others  could 
be  put  at  their  disposal. 

In  looking  over  the  list  of  your  publications 
(comprising  over  135  separate  titles)  beginning  with 
the  year  1861  and  extending  into  the  present  year, 
we  notice  a  wide  diversity  of  subjects  which  involve 
the  evident  desire  to  utilize  for  pure  biology  as  well 
as  for  its  application  in  medicine  all  new  facts  and 
ideas  which  might  be  of  service  to  both  the  science 
and  the  art.  We  are  especially  pleased  to  note  that 
in  latter  years  your  original  work  has  been  restricted 
more  or  less  to  Neurology.  This,  we  trust,  is  an  in- 
dication that  your  varied  burdens  are  being  shifted 
in  part  to  other  shoulders,  and  that  your  energies 
may  be  applied  uninterruptedly  to  the  most  congen- 
ial subjects. 

The  quarter-century  which  lies  behind  you  has 
been  tr^dng  in  more  than  one  direction.  I  need  but 
point  to  the  great  change — I  would  almost  say  revo- 
lution— which  has  come  over  the  attitude  of  the  in- 
tellectual classes,  during  the  latter  years  of  your 
term  of  service,  toward  biological  problems  which 
reach  out  toward  those  of  human  destiny.  The 
dawning  conception  of  a  process  of  evolution  going 
on  in  the  universe,  while  staring  the  true  biologist  in 
the  face  as  an  inevitable  reality  that  had  come  to 
stay,  was  attacked  b)'  almost  every  other  class  and 
profession  as  inimical  to  the  highest  interests  of  liu- 


72  THK    ADDRESSES. 

inanity.  But  how  different  to-day.  The  best  thought 
has  surged  up  to  the  level  of  that  of  the  older  biolo- 
gists and  even  submerged  it.  The  popularizing  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  being  pushed  earnestly 
by  such  men  as  Henry  Drummond  and  Lyman  Ab- 
bott, men  of  the  truest  Christian  spirit.  Your  own 
course  during  this  trying  period  has  been  entirely 
consistent,  highly  honorable  to  yourself  as  a  man, 
and  ver}^  creditable  to  3^our  biological  instincts. 

We  would  not  be  accredited  biologists  if  we  did 
not  glance  for  a  moment  into  the  past  to  note  the 
causes  which  aided  in  the  unfolding  of  those  biologi- 
cal instincts  that  developed  and  made  permanent,  in 
3^ou  the  strong  desire  to  get  be3'ond  the  always  de- 
fective knowledge  of  the  present.  We  have  your 
own  testimony  as  to  the  guidance  and  close  personal 
friendship  of  Louis  Agassiz  and  Jeffries  Wyman.  It 
is  not  for  me,  of  a  more  recent  generation,  to  dwell 
upon  the  formative  influence  exerted  b}'  these  Amer- 
ican pioneers  of  the  now  all-pervading  scientific 
spirit.  We  know  that  this  influence  was  strong,  that 
it  is  dearh^  cherished,  and  we  simply  desire  to  pay 
tribute  on  this  day  to  the  most  graceful  ornament  as 
well  as  the  greatest  power  of  the  teacher's  vocation, 
his  personal  influence  over  posterity'. 

We  would  also  gratefully  recall  on  this  occasion 
the  services  of  those  of  your  colleagues  who  have 
successfully  fought  with  j-ou  the  ups  and  downs  of 
this  first  quarter-century.  Traces  of  their  moulding 
and   stimulating   influence  are   not   wanting  in  the 


DR.  smith'vS  presentation.  73 

pages  of  this  volume,  and  we  feel  sure  that  you  will 
give  them  full  recognition. 

In  this  volume  there  is  also  embodied  a  message 
to  the  University.  I  believe  that  I  voice  the  senti- 
ment of  its  authors  when  I  say  that  a  university  is 
the  only  true  place  for  research,  and  that,  when  this 
spirit  and  its  fruits  are  absent,  a  university  does  not 
deserve  the  name.  It  is  true  that  original  investiga- 
tion may  spasmodically  show  itself  through  private 
munificence  or  under  government  auspices,  but  the 
difficulty  will  always  lie  in  the  atmosphere,  the  envi- 
ronment. Those  who  devote  themselves  to  the  solu- 
tion of  problems  whose  virtues,  like  those  of  Emer- 
son's weeds,  have  not  yet  been  discovered,  cannot 
hope  to  get  light  in  an  atmosphere  befogged  by  a 
false  utilitarianism. 

But  this  is  not  the  occasion  for  any  disquisition  on 
the  value  of  original  research,  or  on  the  supposed 
antagonism  between  what  has  been  popularly  de- 
nominated the  theoretical  and  the  practical.  To  me 
the  main  difference  seems  to  be  that  the  latter  minis- 
ters to  the  immediate  present,  the  former  to  the  fu- 
ture rather  than  to  the  present.  Original  research  has 
in  itself  therefore  all  the  elements  of  service  to  man- 
kind if  rightly  viewed.  The  economic  progress  of 
to-day  is  based  upon  the  discoveries  of  men  devoted 
to  science  for  its  own  sake  one  or  more  generations 
ago.  And  so  the  unfolding  of  a  new  fact  to-day  may 
relieve  or  aid  indirectly  in  relieving  a  pressing  want 
of  our  immediate  posterity. 


74  THE    ADDREvSSES. 

The  ideals  of  a  university  are  thus  in  entire  ac- 
cord with  those  which  stimulate  research.  Cornell 
University  has  provided  liberally  for  the  mainten- 
ance of  these  ideals.  The  message  of  this  volume  is 
therefore  two-fold  :  It  transmits  the  sincere  thanks 
of  its  authors  to  the  trustees  and  benefactors  of  this 
institution  for  what  has  been  done  to  plant  the  seeds 
of  which  this  volume  is  the  early  fruitage.  It  fur- 
thermore embodies  the  earnest  wish  that,  as  this  now 
great  institution  expands  still  more,  original  research 
may  always  be  regarded  as  its  main  function ;  and 
that  any  one  who  comes  with  the  true  ability  and  the 
genuine  desire  to  search  for  the  truth  in  au}-  direc- 
tion whatsoever,  may  receive  a  cordial  welcome  and 
find  a  comfortable  and  well  furnished  home. 

It  still  remains  for  me  to  put  this  volume  into 
your  hands.  We  hope  that  your  critical  sense  will 
deal  leniently  with  its  shortcomings.  Much  of  it  is 
the  outgrowth,  not  of  leisure,  but  of  busy,  preoccu- 
pied lives,  and  the  signs  of  haste  and  incompleteness 
must  be  ascribed  to  want  of  that  most  important  aid 
to  original  thought,  time.  May  it  add  happiness  to 
your  life  whenever  you  turn  to  its  pages,  and  when 
you  shall  have  reached  the  age  of  three  score  and 
ten  we  shall  look  for  the  coming  of  another,  larger 
Jubclband  to  find  a  place  by  its  side. 


PROFESvSOR   WILDER'vS   RESPONSE.  75 

Professor  Wilder  responded  as  follows  : 

PROFEvSSOR   WIIvDKR'S   RESPONvSH. 

My  formry  student^  my  later  assistant^  my  loiig-fime 
friend  : 

My  acquaintance  with  this  volume  is  but  ten  days 
old,  but  I  learn  that  the  movement  for  its  production 
was  begun  in  July,  1892.  Here  are  five  hundred 
pages  of  text,  with  the  equivalent  of  thirty-eight 
plates,  including  an  engraving  by  a  master  in  the  art. 

The  subjects  are  all  important.  Here  are  repre- 
sented geology,  botany,  bacteriology,  medicine  and 
surgery,  comparative  anatomy,  entomology,  evolu- 
tion, and  social  science.  With  some  of  these  topics  my 
relation  is  very  remote,  and  the  honor  radiating  from 
this  volume  must  fall  in  great  degree  upon  my  col- 
leagues and  upon  the  University  as  a  whole. 

Like  most  Cornell  graduates,  the  contributors  are 
busy  men  and  women,  fully  occupied  indeed  with 
duties  to  institutions,  to  the  state,  and  to  the  nation. 
In  every  case  what  was  regarded  as  a  labor  of  love  has 
nevertheless  been  accomplished  at  a  sacrifice  of 
much  needed  rest  and  in  some  instances  under  most 
trying  conditions.  I  assure  you  these  sacrifices 
would  not  be  acceptable  to  me  but  for  the  conviction 
that,  in  both  intention  and  effect.  Science  and  Cornell 
are  glorified  rather  than  my  humble  self. 

Among  the  contributors  are  artists,  instructors, 
physicians,  officers  in  government  departments,  pro- 
fessors in  medical  colleges  and  in  universities,  and  a 


76  THE   ADDREvSSES. 

uiiivcrsil}^  president.  One  of  the  artists  is  a  woman, 
highly  accomplished  in  the  drawing  and  engraving 
of  natural  history  objects,  a  work  demanding  the 
difficult  subordination  of  the  artistic  sense  to  the  sci- 
entific conscience.  Another  woman  contributes  an 
article  second  to  none  in  fact,  philosophy,  or  illustra- 
tion. This  paper  alone  refutes  all  assumptions  as  to 
the  incompatibility  of  the  feminine  constitution 
with  delicate  manipulation,  close  observation,  accur- 
ate delineation,  clear  description,  logical  reasoning, 
intellectual  initiative,  and  persistent  endeavor.  In 
this  connection,  and  perhaps  as  exemplifying  the 
transmission  of  acquired  tendencies,  it  may  be  add- 
ed that  the  child  of  this  woman,  the  father  being 
also  an  anatomist,  when  only  five  years  old  declared 
that  his  brain  was  to  be  given  to  Dr.  Wilder ;  it  is 
more  probable  that  he  will  examine  mine. 

My  pardonable  pride  on  this  occasion  is  tempered 
by  an  ever  present  realization  of  shortcomings  in 
ability  and  method,  although  never,  I  think,  in  pur- 
pose. But  there  is  one  feature  of  the  Anatomical 
Department  upon  which  we  ma}^  reflect  with  satisfac- 
tion unalloyed.  There  has  been  always  mutual  con- 
fidence and  cordial  cooperation.  Never  at  our  table 
has  sat  "  suspicion  poisoning  his  brother's  cup." 
Each  has  been  kept  informed  of  what  all  were  doing, 
and  we  have  never  harbored  that  osteological  bug- 
bear, a  "  skeleton  in  the  closet." 

Naturally  these  articles  have  been  written  by 
those  who  like  3'ourself  have  taken  advanced  work 


PROFESSOR   HUFFCUT'S   PRESENTATION.  77 

in  the  department.  For  the  rest  of  the  3261  stu- 
dents whom  it  has  been  my  duty  and  privilege  to  in- 
struct, I  have  no  higher  wish  than  that  they  may 
resemble  you  and  your  collaborators.  For  I  believe 
you  have  not  cultivated  the  True  and  the  Beautiful  at 
the  expense  of  the  Good.  In  your  lives  you  declare 
that  above  all  intellect  is  character.  You  are  expo- 
nents of  the  idea  that  the  highest  function  of  a  uni- 
versity^ is — without  neglecting  the  increase  and 
dissemination  of  knowledge — to  set  the  world  an  ex- 
ample of  industry,  justice,  and  purity  of  life. 

Upon  this,  the  silver  anniversary  of  my  union 
with  Cornell  University,  speech  seems  to  have  been 
expected  and  I  comply.  Should  I  live  to  see  the 
fiftieth  return  of  the  day,  I  trust  there  may  be  given 
me  wisdom  to  maintain  a  golden  silence,  only  point- 
ing to  the  achievements  of  the  pupils  of  those  who 
have  made  this  precious  book. 

President  Schurman  then  announced  the  presentation  by 
Professor  Huffcut  of  his  history  of  the  University. 

PROFESSOR  HUFFCUT'S   PRESENTATION. 

Circumstances  made  me  some  years  ago  the  tem- 
porary historiographer  of  Cornell  Universit}^  What 
was  then  begun  under  a  sense  of  obligation  has 
since  been  continued  with  increasing  interest  and 
admiration.  The  fruit  of  these  investigations  I  now 
place  in  your  hands  in  the  hope  that  it  ma}-  ease  the 


78  THE   ADDRESSES. 

labors  of  some  worthier  successor.  Suffer  me  to  add 
that  I  rise  from  these  studies  of  the  history  of 
Cornell  impressed  with  the  conviction  that,  while  she 
owes  much  to  a  large  body  of  earnest  and  devoted 
friends,  she  owes  most  of  what  she  is  and  what  she 
promises  to  three  men,  one  of  whom  has  gone  to  his 
reward,  one  of  whom  serves  his  country  in  a  far 
distant  land,  and  one  of  whom  we  have  happily  with 
us  on  this  occasion  ; — but  the  work  of  all  three  now 
firmly  and  forever  established  ! 

President  Schurman  responded  : 

This  useful  and  appropriate  offering  of  an  hon- 
ored alumnus  to  his  Alma  Mater,  I  accept  in  the 
name  of  the  University  with  pride  and  pleasure. 

The  President  then  added  :  The  benediction  will  now  be 
pronounced  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Synnott. 

THE  BENEDICTION. 

May  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  rest  upon  us 
and  upon  our  purposes,  through  Jesus  Christ,  now 
and  forever.  Amen. 


THE   DINNER. 


THE  DINNER. 


At  the  close  of  the  addresses,  it  being  now  pavSt  one  o'clock, 
the  invited  guests  and  the  alumni,  under  the  escort  of  the 
Trustees  and  Facultj-  of  the  University,  made  their  way  from 
the  Library  to  the  University  Gymnasium,  where  the  dinner 
was  in  waiting.  There  sat  down  to  the  table  some  four 
hundred  persons  ;  and,  so  liappj'  had  been  the  forecast  as  to 
numbers,  there  were  few  vacant  seats.  On  the  dais,  at  the 
north  side  of  the  hall,  were  the  President  of  the  Universit)% 
the  orator  of  the  day,  Chancellor  Upson  and  Regent  McKelwa)^ 
the  Hon.  Oscar  S.  Straus,  Trustees  Cornell,  Woodford,  Lord, 
Carnegie,  Barnes,  Synnott,  Williams,  Halliday,  Hiscock, 
Kerr,  Treman,  Turner,  and  Francis,  while  the  Faculty  was 
represented  by  Professor  Crane,  the  old  students  and  alumni 
by  the  Hon.  Joseph  C.  Hendrix  and  Seward  A.  Simons,  Ivsq., 
and  sister  institutions  by  President  Low  of  Columbia,  Presi- 
dent Northrop  of  the  University  of  Minnesota,  President 
Taylor  of  Vassar,  Chancellor  Snow  of  the  University  of 
Kansas,  President  Hervey  of  St.  Lawrence  University,  and 
President  Crowell  of  Trinity  College,  N.  C. 

During  the  meal  President  Schurman  read  to  the  assem- 
bled company  this  telegraphic  greeting  : 

St.  Petersburg,  Oct.  6th,  1893. 

President  Cornel/  University^  Ithaca^  N.  V.  : 

Most  hearty  congratulations  and  best  wishes. 

Andrew  D.  White. 


:^  OF  TBTP; 


UinVEESITY 


82  THR    DINNER. 

Tliis  message  from  Rx-President  White  was  received  with 
great  applause,  and,  at  tlie  suggestion  of  President  vSchurman, 
there  was  sent  the  following  response  : 

Ithaca,  Oct.  7TH,  1893. 

Amci'ican  Minister^  St.  Pctcrsbiwg.,  Russia  : 

Cornell  sends  heartiest  greetings  to  her  first 
President. 

SCHURMAN. 

Of  the  many  greetings  received  from  others  who  were 
unable  to  be  present  at  the  anniversary,  two  at  least  should  be 
here  added  to  that  of  the  first  President  of  the  University. 
From  Paris,  General  John  Meredith  Read,  the  only  survi\'ing 
member  of  the  original  Board  of  Trustees  of  Cornell  Uni\-er- 
sity,  wrote  : 

General  Meredith  Read  has  the  honor  to  acknowl- 
edge the  kind  invitation  of  the  Trustees  and  Faculty 
of  Cornell  University,  to  attend  on  Friday,  Satur- 
day, and  Sunday,  October  6th,  7th,  and  8th,  1S93, 
the  public  exercises  in  celebration  of  the  twent3'-fiftli 
anniversary  of  the  opening  of  the  University.  It  is 
with  extreme  regret  that  he  is  obliged  to  decline, 
owing  to  absence  from  the  country. 

The  Government  of  the  Universit}'  can  readil}' 
understand  the  deep  interest  with  which  the  only 
survivor  of  the  ten  named  in  the  Charter  of  the 
University  takes  in  its  present  and  future  welfare, 
and  the  justifiable  pride   wliich   he  fdiels  in  looking 


GENERAL   read's   LETTER.  83 

back  upon  the  rise  and  progress  of  such  a  niagnifi- 
ceut  fountain  of  varied  learning. 

Pmis  : 

128  Rue  la  Doctie^ 

C J  lamps  Ely  sees. 
22  September,  1893. 

And  from  Toronto  came  the  following  letter  from  Professor 
Goldwin  Smith,  who  brought  to  Cornell  University,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  its  Faculty  at  the  outset  and  for  many  years,  an  experi- 
ence as  organizer  and  as  teacher  at  the  oldest  of  English 
universities  which  made  him  the  most  valued  adviser  of  its 
founders  : 

The  Grange, 

Toronto, 
4tli  October,  1893. 
To 

Dr.  Jacob  Gould  Schur man.,  D.Sc,  LL.D.^ 

President  of  Cornell  University ., 
Ithaca  : 
My  dear  President., — 

My  inabilit}^  to  be  with  you  on  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  the  opening  of  our  University  is  my 
second  great  regret.  My  first  was  that  I  missed  by  a 
few  days  being  present  at  the  opening  itself.  Mar- 
vellous is  the  change  since  the  day  in  November, 
1868,  when,  coming  from  England,  I  landed  at  Ithaca 


84  'I'HI-:    DINNKR. 

and  was  taken  by  onr  Founder  to  the  hill  now 
crowned  b}-  the  numerous  and  statel}^  buildings  of 
the  University.  The  hill  bore  at  that  time,  if  I 
recollect  aright,  only  a  single  finished  building.  The 
dulness  of  a  cloudy  November  morning  added  to  the 
crude  and  unpromising  aspect  of  the  scene.  But 
behind  the  clouds  was  the  sun,  in  the  brightness  of 
which  we  now  rejoice.  In  those  days  we  lived  a  good 
deal  on  hope,  which  these  days  have  gloriously 
fulfilled. 

Of  those  connected  with  the  Universit}-  who  stood 
on  the  hill  twenty-five  years  ago  not  mau}^  are  left. 
Onr  Founder  sleeps  in  honour,  and  most  of  those 
who  originally  shared  his  enterprise  are  dead  or  have 
gone  elsewhere,  Bnt  some  of  our  original  staff 
remain  and  will  be  with  yon  on  this  occasion  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  struggle  and  success.  One  who  will 
not  be  with  you  personall}^,  as  he  is  serving  the  state 
on  a  distant  mission,  will  be  present  to  the  thoughts 
of  all.  An}^  one  who  remembers  the  earl}^  da3\s  will 
say  that  by  his  self-devotion  and  his  generous  effort, 
not  less  than  b}''  his  munificence,  Andrew  White 
earned  the  title  of  a  co-founder.  Personall}^  I  have 
special  reason  to  be  grateful  to  him,  since  I  owe  to 
him  my  connection  with  Cornell. 

Mr.  Cornell's  original  idea,  that  of  combining 
manual  labour  with  study,  so  that  the  student,  while 
working  with  his  brain,  might  sustain  himself  with 
the  labour  of  his  hands,  proved  not  to  be  feasible  on 
a  large  scale.     The  fund  of  nervous  energy  will  not 


PROFESSOR   GOLDWIN    SMITH'S    LETTER.  85 

meet  both  demands.  But  we  owe  perhaps  to  the 
attempt  and  the  character  which  it  impressed  on  us 
an  industrious  and  frugal  race  of  students. 

It  has  been  my  duty  as  a  Lecturer  on  the  Consti- 
tutional History  of  England  to  show  American 
students  that  their  country  has  a  history,  though 
that  history  commenced  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  as  the  history  of  the  Mother  Country  her- 
self commenced  on  the  other  side  of  the  German 
Ocean.  Let  us  not  withhold  our  debt  of  gratitude 
from  the  past.  If  in  treating  of  English  History 
before  Americans  I  have  ever  contravened  American 
tradition,  perhaps  I  have  not  thereby  done  much 
harm.  Of  the  liberties,  as  we  call  them,  though  per- 
haps they  should  rather  be  called  re-distributions  of 
political  power,  which  by  all  these  revolutions  and 
convulsions  the  world  has  won,  some  must  be  deemed 
still  to  be  on  their  trial.  But  liberty  of  opinion  is 
clear  gain  ;  it  is  the  surest  pledge  of  progress,  and  it 
means  freedom  from  the  j^oke  of  popular  prejudice 
as  well  as  from  that  of  intolerant  laws. 

An  Englishman  and  an  Oxford  ex-Professor  resi- 
dent in  Canada  and  holding  a  Chair  in  an  American 
University  seems  to  be  at  a  point  of  junction.  The 
old  quarrel  is  now  very  old,  and  the  feelings  of  all 
good  and  sensible  Englishmen  and  Americans 
towards  each  other  betoken  the  moral  reunion  of  our 
race.  For  the  race  at  large,  scattered  as  it  is  over 
the  world,  more  than  moral  reunion  seems  impossi- 
ble.    For  the  two  sections  of  the  race  which  dwell 


86  THE   DINNER. 

together  on  this  continent  nature  seems  to  design  a 
closer  bond,  if  statesmanshij)  will  do  its  part.  A 
united  continent  sluitting  ont  war  and  devoted  to 
industry  and  progress  appears  at  least  a  rational  as 
well  as  a  generous  aspiration.  But  aspiration  be- 
longs to  the  young  hearts  which  will  fill  3^onr  Hall 
rather  than  to  those  who  like  myself  have  come  to 
the  end  of  their  da3's. 

May  3'our  celebration  be  all  that  you  can  desire, 
and  may  it  open  an  era  if  possible  of  increased  pros- 
perity and  honour  for  Cornell. 

Yours  very  truly, 

GoLDwiN  Smith. 


The  toasts  and  speakers  announced  for  the  dinner  were  as 
follows  : 


1.  The  University: 

(a)    The  Trustees, 

{d)    The  Faculty, 

2.  The  Commonwealth, 

Hon.  Chauncev  M.  Dkpew 

3.  Sister  Institutions  of  the  East, 

President  Seth  Low 

4.  The  Earlier  Students, 

Hon.  D.  H.  McMii^i^an 

5.  Theosophy  and  Education, 

General  A.  C.  Barnes 


Hon.  Henry  W.  Sage 
Professor  T.  F.  Crane 


tup:  toAvSTs.  8y 

6.  Pradlical  Education, 

Andrew  Carnegie 

7.  Sister  Institutions  of  the  West, 

President  Cyrus  Northrop 

8.  The  Universit}^  and  the  Press, 

St.  C1.AIR  McKelway 

9.  The  Education  of  Women, 

President  James  M.  Taylor 

10.  The  College  Graduate  and  the  Man  of  Affairs, 

Hon.  Oscar  S.  Straus 

11.  The  Later  Alumni. 

Seward  A.  Simons,  A.B.,  '79 

In  the  absence  of  Mr.  Sage,  the  response  on  behalf  of 
"  The  Trustees  "  was  made  by  the  Hon.  Samuel  D.  Halliday  ; 
and  the  Hon.  Joseph  C.  Hendrix  took  the  place  of  Senator 
McMillan  as  the  spokesman  of  ' '  The  Earlier  Students. ' ' 

It  was  nearly  seven  in  the  evening  when  the  dinner 
reached  an  end,  and  the  guests  scattered  for  the  night. 


THE  SERMON 


THE  vSERMON. 

At  eleven  on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  the  8th,  the  mem- 
1:)ers  of  the  University,  with  their  guests,  again  gathered  at 
the  Armorj',  to  listen  to  the  anniversary  sermon  by  the  Bishop 
of  Albany,  the  Right  Reverend  William  Croswell  Doane, 
D.D.  Oxon.,  LIv.D.  Cantab.,  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  State  of  New  York. 

BISHOP  DOANE'S  SERMON. 

Ephesians  IV,  17  :  TJiis  I  say  therefore,  and  testify  in  the 
Lord,  that  ye  henceforth  walk  not  as  other  Gentiles  walk,  in  the 
vanity  of  their  mind. 

Certainly  not  tlie  least  striking  feature,  in  this 
earnest  exhortation  of  the  apostle  to  his  Ephesian 
converts,  is  its  perpetual  reiteration  of  complement- 
ar}^  truths  ;  by  the  observance  of  which,  only,  can 
any  real  completeness  of  character  be  attained.  It  is 
not  merely  a  series  of  prohibitions  and  a  succession 
of  negative  statements  ;  but  they  are  accompanied 
by  a  statement  of  positive  duties,  and  a  set  of  definite 
commands.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  may  well  be 
taken  to  be  the  essential  principle  of  any  true  rule  of 
life.  The  kind  of  character  that  is  produced  b}^  the 
mere  avoidance  of  wrong  is  one-sided  and  imperfect, 
to  say  the  least  of  it ;  and,  from  the  very  first  out- 
going of  the  law,  God's  revelation  to  man  of  duty. 


92  THE   SERMON. 

not  merely  sa3'S  "thou  sluilt  not,"  but  begins  really 
with  "  thou  shalt."  All  that  goes  to  make  back-bone 
in  character  consists  in  positiveness.  The  prevailing 
habit  of  our  day,  the  sort  of  boneless  and  inverte- 
brate attitude  toward  truth  and  duty,  grows  out  of 
this  wrong  method  of  facing  facts.  If  you  begin  at 
the  very  beginning,  you  will  find  that  the  apostle 
urges  his  people  to  energy  and  activity  in  the  Chris- 
tian life.  He  does  not  say  "  that  ye  henceforth  walk 
7/6'/,"  but  "  that  ye  henceforth  walk^  not  as  other 
Gentiles  walk ; "  implying,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
what  is  absolutely  true,  that  the  same  hot  and  eager 
pursuit  of  their  old  pleasures,  "lasciviousness,  unclean- 
ness,  and  corruptness,"  ought  to  mark  the  Christian 
life  and  character;  eager  and  earnest  for  good,  as 
they  had  been  earnest  and  eager  for  evil.  The  next 
statement  is  stronger  and  clearer  still.  They  must 
"put  off  the  old  man,"  and  then^  being  "renewed  in 
the  spirit  of  their  mind,"  the}^  must  "  put  on  the 
new ; "  and  this  is  the  cardinal  and  central  statement 
of  all.  Think  of  it  in  the  illustration  that  is  so 
familiar  to  us  all.  The  daily  routine,  with  which  we 
deal  with  our  phj^sical  bodies,  consists,  one  ma}^  sa}'-, 
in  putting  off  for  the  purpose  of  putting  on  :  the 
change  of  dress  from  day  to  night  and  then  again 
from  night  to  day;  or  finer  still,  the  illustration  of 
that  statement  which  St.  Paul  makes  elsewhere  in 
his  teaching  about  the  great  fact  and  power  of  the 
resurrection,  that  we  are  to  be,  not  merely  "  un- 
clothed," stripped  of  all  that  is  merely  mortal  and 


BISHOP  doane's  sermon.  93 

poor,  of  the  flesh  which  clothes  the  better  nature  of 
the  inner  man, — but  are  to  be  "clothed  upon"  with 
that  new  resurrection  boch^,  identical  in  one  way,  so 
far  as  individual  conditions  and  individual  recogni- 
tions are  concerned,  but  "a  body  of  glory,"  a  body 
in  which  we  shall  wake  up  after  His  likeness  and  be 
satisfied  wath  it.  We  are  too  much  content  with  put- 
ting off  the  bad  habits, — which  are  the  same  thing  as 
clothes, — and  leaving  ourselves  naked  of  any  posi- 
tive virtue  and  unclothed  with  any  real  grace.  Be- 
yond this,  if  one  takes  the  simple  application  with 
which  St.  Paul  develops  this  idea,  it  will  work  itself 
out  in  practical  suggestions  of  undoubted  value  to 
every  life.  "  Put  away  lying."  Why  ?  In  order  to 
speak  truth,  with  plainness  and  courage  and  posi- 
tiveness.  The  thief  is  not  only  "  not  to  steal,"  but 
he  is  to  set  his  hands,  which  had  been  used  for  the 
base  purpose  of  dishonesty,  to  honest  labour,  not 
merely  for  labour's  sake,  but  that  "he  may  have  to 
give  to  him  that  needeth."  The  mouth  is  not  only 
to  be  cleansed  from  all  corrupt  communications,  pro- 
fane, impure,  unkind,  untrue  ;  but  it  is  to  set  itself 
to  the  good  speech  of  edifying  words  which  "  may 
minister  grace  unto  the  hearer."  And  in  like  man- 
ner bitterness  must  give  place  to  kindness  one  to 
anothei'^  and  wrath  and  anger  and  damotir  and  evil- 
speaking  must  not  only  be  rooted  out ;  but  the  heart 
on  which  they  lay  like  stones,  and  out  of  which  they 
grow  like  thorns,  must  be  softened  until  it  is  tender. 
And  when  all  malice  has  been  put  away,  we  must 


94  THE   vSRRMON. 

learn  that  other  and  greater  lesson  of  the  active 
virtue  of  forgivingness,  "  forgiving  one  another  even 
as  God  for  Christ's  sake  has  forgiven  yon."  Further 
than  this,  I  do  not  desire  to  work  out  the  whole  of 
this  great  passage  of  the  Word  of  God,  but  onl}^  to 
la}^  down  underneath  the  teaching,  which  it  is  my 
privilege  to  give  to  you  this  morning,  this  principle, 
of  evil  overcome,  of  sin  given  up,  of  vice  abandoned, 
/';/  order  that  goodness  and  holiness  and  virtue  may 
be  attained,  as  lying  at  the  root  and  being  the  founda- 
tion of  all  efforts  at  the  making  of  character  ;  which 
I  take  to  be  the  true  purpose  of  the  training  of  every 
man.  It  is  all  well  enough  to  have  gathered  into  bot- 
tles, and  put  upon  shelves,  and  labeled  with  the  utmost 
accuracy,  the  different  drugs  which  have  been  first 
compounded  by  the  aid  of  chemistry  ;  but,  after  all, 
the  value  only  conies,  when  men  have  learned  to  take 
the  separate  elements  so  gathered  and  so  marked, 
and  put  them  together  into  something  that  shall 
minister  to  the  healing  of  disease,  and  the  getting 
back  of  strength  and  health  instead.  And  so  the 
only  true  effect  of  any  real  education  is,  not  to  have 
sorted  out  and  pigeon-holed  and  marked,  either  in  a 
commonplace  book  or  in  the  separate  compartments 
of  the  mind,  this  or  that  formula  of  science  or  of 
philosophy,  this  or  that  fact  of  history,  this  or  that 
phrase  of  literature ;  but  to  have  taken  awaj^  from 
here  such  portions  of  learning  as  may  become  means 
and  ministries  for  higher  things  ;  and  then  to  use 
them   for  the  great  purpose  which    the    Founder  of 


BISHOP   DOANE'S   sermon.  95 

this  University  had  in  mind,  the  training  and  the 
preparation  of  men  and  women,  for  the  work  in  life 
"  into  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  them." 

Taking  the  sentence,  "  sententia,"  to  be  what  it 
certainl}^  ought  to  be,  the  expression  of  a  thought, 
and  measuring  size  by  substance  and  not  by  super- 
ficial extent,  I  do  not  think  it  is  too  much  to  say,  that 
few  larger  sentences  have  ever  been  written,  few 
larger  thoughts  ever  conceived,  than  the  sentence 
and  the  thought  expressed  by  the  far-seeing  man 
who  established  Cornell  University  as  "an  institu- 
tion where  a)iy  person  might  find  instruction  in  a7iy 
study."  Large,  it  seems  to  me,  the  sentence  and  the 
thought  are,  because  of  their  comprehensiveness ; 
not  only  their  comprehension  of  numbers  of  men, 
but  their  comprehension  of  the  width  of  study  :  ^''Any 
person  in  mty  study."  Coming  as  I  am  to-day  to 
speak  at  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  found- 
ing of  this  University,  I  may  perhaps  claim  that  I 
stand  here  in  two  relations  ;  partly,  as  one,  a  large 
part  of  whose  life  has  been  given  to  the  practical 
business  of  education  ;  and  partly,  as  honoured  by 
the  State  of  New  York  by  a  position  in  the  Board  of 
Regents  of  its  University.  So  that,  when  your 
President  gave  me  the  opportunity  of  sharing  in  the 
thoughts  and  the  thanksgivings  of  to-day,  I  was  very 
glad  to  avail  myself  of  it ;  both  to  bring  to  you  the 
greeting  of  the  Regents  ;  and  to  assure  you  of  the 
sympathy  of  an  educator,  whose  last  venture  dates 
from  the  same  j^ear  in  which  Cornell  University  was 


96  thp:  vSRrmon. 

founded.  In  1869  ^  ^^'^^  consecrated  to  the  Episco- 
pate, and  began  instantly,  as  a  pressing  part  of  my 
official  duty,  the  founding  of  St.  Agnes'  School.  And 
in  1869,  that  wise  and  practical  mind  whose  name 
finds  its  highest  among  many  honours,  and  its  ten- 
derest  among  many  memories,  in  the  University 
which  he  first  created  and  then  saved,  brought  to  the 
focus  of  its  beginning  the  Institution  which  has  so 
abundantly  justified  the  end  of  its  founding  and  the 
wisdom  of  its  plan.  It  will  be  enough  for  me,  I 
think,  to  say  that  in  my  various  means  of  intercourse 
with  the  University,  and  the  men  who  have  made  it, 
and  are  making  it  still,  I  have  come  more  and  more 
to  feel,  with  every  visit  here  and  with  every  evidence 
of  the  growth  and  advancement  of  its  work,  that  its 
brief  history  is  brilliant,  and  its  long  future  full  of 
noble  promise  for  the  best  interests  of  learning. 

It  would  be  neither  honest  to  m3'-self  nor  just  to 
you,  if  I  did  not  frankly  say,  at  the  start,  that  I  have 
the  strongest  convictions  of  the  grave  necessity  and 
absolute  importance  of  definite  religious  teaching,  in 
anything  that  goes  to  make  the  complete  education 
of  a  human  being.  I  feel  this,  not  merely  because  of 
my  position  as  a  religious  teacher,  nor  merely 
because  1 7fi?is/  represent  the  uniform  belief  and  prac- 
tice of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  ;  but  because  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  inheres  in  the  actual  make-up  of 
every  human  being,  that  no  education  is  proportion- 
ate, which  does  not  take  hold  of  each  distinct  and 
separate  element  in  human  nature.     The  overween- 


BISHOP    DOANE'vS   sermon.  97 

ing  attention  to  athletic  sports,  at  the  expense  of 
proper  cultivation  of  the  mind,  or  the  absorption  in 
intellectual  pursuits  which  burns  not  only  the 
midnight  oil,  but  burns  the  oil  all  out  of  physical 
force  and  mental  vigour,  are  both  of  them  to  be  con- 
demned and  avoided ;  not  merely  because  of  their 
evil  results,  but  because  they  are  developing  one 
part  of  a  man  at  the  expense  and  to  the  neglect  of 
the  other.  And  in  the  same  line  of  reasoning,  it 
seems  to  me  impossible  to  accept  the  man  as  an  edu- 
cated man,  whose  will  is  left  untrained,  whose  con- 
science is  inactive,  whose  mind  is  not  led  to  contem- 
plate the  great  mysteries  of  revealed  truth  ;  and  who 
is  not  reminded  that  even  his  physical  powers  are 
given  him  not  merely  for  digging  and  delving  in  the 
earth,  but  for  the  devotion  of  those  powers  to  the 
glory  of  God.  In  an  ideal  and  Utopian  condition  of 
society  ;  if  Christianity  were  undivided  ;  if  we  agreed 
among  ourselves  upon  even  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  the  Christian  Faith  ;  if  there  were  only  two 
ecclesiastical  systems  to  be  dealt  with,  namely, 
Roman  Catholicism,  and  what  is  called  Protestant- 
ism or  evangelical  Christianity,  this  matter  could  be 
very  readily  dealt  with.  Because  each  one  of  these 
two  great  lines  of  thought,  the  one  of  which  is  based 
upon  the  tyranny  of  authority  and  the  other  upon 
the  license  of  individualism  (whereas  really  individ- 
ualism is  liberty  under  law  and  not  license,  and 
authority  is  a  co-ordinate  matter,  a  limited  monarchy, 
a  constitutional  government) ;  if,  I  sa}^,  we  had  o\\\y 


98  THR   SERMON. 

these  two  opposing  principles  before  us,  the  matter 
could  be  easily  arranged  by  letting  Roman  Catholics 
educate  their  own  children  in  their  own  peculiar 
views  of  religious  belief,  and  letting  other  Chris- 
tians train  their  children,  in  their  wa}'.  But  no  such 
state  of  things  exists  or  is  likely  to  exist.  Some- 
times I  think  there  will  be  a  unification  of  all  the 
Protestant  bodies  against  the  political,  educational, 
and  ecclesiastical  assertions  and  assumptions  of 
Rome.  But  he  is  a  bold  dreamer  who  hopes  for 
such  inherent  unity  in  work  and  worship,  as  will 
enable  the  gathering  together  of  all  un-Roman  chil- 
dren into  common  religious  schools.  I  believe,  then, 
that  each  religious  body  is  bound  to  provide  for  the 
complete  training  in  all  matters,  moral  and  spiritual, 
of  its  own  children  ;  and  in  the  next  place  that  the 
Christian  Church,  using  it  in  its  largest  meaning, 
is  bound  to  supplement,  in  all  the  various  ways  in 
which  it  can  be  supplemented,  the  training  that  is 
given  in  non-religious  institutions.  I  should  be 
thankful  if  here,  under  the  shadow  and  wing  of  this 
great  University,  and  under  the  shadow  and  wing  of 
every  great  University  of  America,  the  Church  of 
which  I  am  a  minister  could  have  its  own  Hall,  its 
own  Chapel,  its  own  religious  teachers,  carefully 
selected,  to  develop  and  present  the  educational  sys- 
tem of  the  Church  ;  wdiile  at  the  same  time  the  stu- 
dents in  these  Halls  could  get  the  enormous  advantage 
of  access  to  the  lecture-rooms  and  libraries  of  the 
larger  Institutions.     Failing  of  that,  and  failing  of 


BISHOP    DOANE'S   sermon.  99 

ail}'  abilit}'  to  meet  that  great  demand  for  instruction, 
which  stirred  the  mind  of  Ezra  Cornell,  and  certainly 
must  stir  the  mind  of  ever}^  thoughtful  and  intelli- 
gent citizen,  it  seems  to  me  the  duty  of  Christian 
men  and  Christian  Churches,  to  recognize  the  value, 
and  advance  the  interests  of  the  whole  system  of 
public  education,  beginning  with  the  Common  School 
and  ending  with  the  University ;  and  to  be  diligent 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  in  Church  and  family, 
in  Sunday-schools  and  Christian  organizations  of 
every  sort,  to  consecrate  for  God  the  learning  and  the 
acquirements  which  are  obtained  in  schools,  that  bear 
no  special  religious  name  and  have  no  special  relig- 
ious influence  or  intention. 

I  feel  that  I  am  authorized,  and  I  think  it  is  im- 
portant, to  repudiate  the  impression  that  a  school 
without  definite  religious  teaching  is  therefore  what 
is  commonly  called  a  godless  or  irreligious  school. 
The  report  of  your  last  President  for  the  academic 
year  1891-92  contains  a  clear  and  striking  statement 
in  regard  to  this  matter,  which  I  was  glad  to  see  and 
which  I  am  glad  to  quote. 

"  I  have  always  regarded  it  as  a  mark  of  special 
wisdom  that  in  the  organization  of  this  University 
provision  was  made  to  secure  its  perpetual  exemption 
from  political  and  religious  partisanship.  The  clause 
in  the  original  charter  providing  that  '  at  no  time 
shall  a  majority  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  be  of  one 
religious  sect  or  of  no  religious  sect'  would  seem  to 
indicate  that,  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  University 


lOO  THK    SERMON. 

could  never  drift  into  the  control  of  any  one  denom- 
ination, on  the  other,  it  was  forced  to  have  a  funda- 
mental Ijias  in  favour  of  Christiauit3\  While  this 
interpretation  is  not  inconsistent  with  perfect  free- 
dom on  the  part  of  teachers  and  pupils,  it  is  essen- 
tial to  a  widespread  confidence  on  the  part  of  a 
Christian  community.  While,  therefore,  there  has 
been  a  perfect  religious  freedom  in  ever}^  department 
of  the  University,  I  have  always  regarded  it  as 
strictly  within  the  legitimate  scope  of  my  duties  as 
President,  to  encourage  in  every  way  practicable  the 
voluntary  religious  activities  of  professors  and  stu- 
dents." 

There  certainl}'^  can  be  no  question  of  two  things  : 
first,  that  there  can  be  no  religious  education  which 
is  not  based  upon  the  teaching  of  positive  and  defi- 
nite dogma  and  truth.  The  theory  that  education  is 
made  religious  by  the  reading  of  a  few  verses  of  the 
Bible  at  the  opening  of  the  school  da3%  or  that  the 
schools  have  become  irreligious  by  the  exclusion  of 
the  Bible  from  them,  I  have  felt  for  many  years  to  be 
a  great  mistake.  I  believe  it  would  have  been  wiser, 
years  ago,  to  have  yielded  to  the  insincere  demand 
which  was  made  for  the  exclusion  of  the  Bible  from 
the  public  schools ;  because  it  would  have  removed 
at  the  same  time  even  the  apparent  justice  of  the 
claim,  on  the  part  of  any  single  religious  bod}-,  to 
use  the  public  tax  moneys,  raised  for  purposes  of 
public  education,  in  their  special  interest.  And  be- 
cause  it  stands,  I   think,   lo  reason,  thai  veneering. 


BISHOP    DOANE'S    sermon.  IOI 

even  with  the  costliest  and  choicest  of  foreign  wood, 
can  never  make  the  plain  pine  stnff  on  which  it  is 
put  anything  but  plain  pine.  On  the  other  hand, 
while  a  secular  school  could  not  be  made  religious  by 
the  reading  of  the  Bible,  nor  irreligious  by  its  exclu- 
sion, I  believe  it  to  be  also  true  that  the  underlying 
principles  of  national  morality,  to  which  Washington 
alluded  in  his  farewell  address,  and  which  must  be 
taught  of  course  in  all  educational  institutions,  must 
be  based  upon  general  religious  principles,  as  the 
only  real  motive  to  the  practice  of  moralit3^  While, 
therefore,  strictly  speaking,  religion  can  not  be 
taught,  and  while,  as  a  result  from  this  conclusion, 
the  authorized  teachers  of  religion  must  be  most 
careful  to  supplement  the  imperfect  education  which 
trains  merely  the  mind,  it  seems  to  me  that  no  ethics 
or  morals,  or  philosophy,  or  history,  or  science  can 
be  taught  in  any  way,  except  on  the  underlying 
basis  of  general  religious  truth.  Christianity  is  the 
atmosphere  in  which  we  think  and  speak  and  teach 
and  learn  and  live.  It  is  the  influence  which  has 
substituted  courtesy  and  consideration  for  the  intoler- 
ance, or  the  worse  thing,  mere  toleration,  of  the  He- 
brew people  ;  and  it  is  the  power  which  gives  to  the 
agnostic  the  liberty  of  his  false  prophesying  and  the 
security  and  sanctity  of  his  property,  his  person,  and 
his  home.  And  we  have  the  right  to  claim,  that 
with  all  the  necessary  avoidance  of  the  technical 
teaching  of  definite  truth,  there  shall  be  the  abso- 
lute prohibition  of  any  eftbrt,  either  directly  or  indi- 


I02  THE  SERMON. 

rectly,  to  sap  the  instinctive  and  natural  tendency  of 
a  man's  mind  to  belief.  Dr.  Strong,  in  his  remarka- 
ble book,  "  Our  Country,"  quotes  Plutarch's  famous 
saying,  "  There  never  was  a  city  of  atheists.  You 
may' travel  all  over  the  world  and  you  may  find  cities 
without  walls,  without  king,  without  mint,  without 
theatre  or  gymnasium,  but  you  will  nowhere  find  a 
city  without  a  god,  without  prayer,  without  oracle, 
without  sacrifice.  Sooner  may  a  city  stand  without 
foundations  than  a  city  without  belief  in  the  gods." 

Having  said  this  much,  I  beg  to  throw  myself 
with  all  the  earnestness  I  am  capable  of  into  the  estab- 
lishment of  two  things  :  first,  to  assert  the  bounden 
duty  of  the  State  to  rescue  all  its  citizens  from  the 
misery  of  ignorance,  which  is  the  inevitable  mother 
of  vice ;  and  secondly  to  press  home  upon  the  minds 
of  the  3'oung  men  to  whom  it  is  my  privilege  and 
responsibility  to  speak  to-day,  the  debt  which  their 
nature  as  God  made  it,  and  their  opportunities  as 
God  gives  them,  lay  upon  them,  to  learn  the  duties, 
and  fit  themselves  to  discharge  the  duties,  of  Chris- 
tian citizenship  in  a  Christian  State.  It  is  better  to 
face  the  fact  that,  and  the  reason  why,  the  State  is 
obliged  not  only  to  establish  common  schools  and 
support  them  b}'  a  compulsory  tax,  but  also  to  com- 
pel the  attendance  of  children  in  them.  And  the 
basis  of  the  whole  argument  rests,  it  seems  to  me,  at 
its  foundation,  upon  drawing  the  distinction  between 
what  we  are  very  fond  of  talking  of,  namely  the 
rights  of  citizens,  and  the  <^/////W,  both  of  citizens  and 


BISHOP    DOANE'S    sermon.  IO3 

of  the  State.  I  do  not  mean  to  make  too  sweeping  a 
statement  as  to  rights.  There  are  certain  things 
which  are  called  rights,  inherent  in  man.  The  three 
great  elements  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
"  life,  liberty,  and  the  pnrsnit  of  happiness,"  may  in 
a  way  be  called  the  I'ights  of  men.  That  is  to  say, 
they  are  the  things  which  God  gives  them  of  His 
goodness  and  which  no  government  has  a  right  to 
take  away.  Bnt  the  gronnd  and  reason  for  popular 
and  universal  education  is  not  the  rigJit  of  the  citi- 
zen, but  the  duty  of  the  State  to  itself.  It  must  pro- 
tect its  own  existence,  and  the  life  and  liberty  and 
happiness  of  its  people,  by  providing  against  the 
brutality  which  belongs  to  ignorance.  And  it  can 
only  do  this,  by  establishing  Common  Schools,  that 
is  schools  for  all,  and  by  compelling  the  attendance 
of  its  children  in  them.  In  a  way  it  is  true — and  I 
believe  we  ought  to  be  more  than  we  are  on  our 
guard  against  extravagance  and  excess — that  only  a 
limited  amount  of  education  is  necessary  to  accom- 
plish this  end ;  that  it  would  be  sufficient  to  ground 
all  children  in  the  elements  of  education,  and  to  let 
what  lies  beyond  that  take  care  of  itself.  I  am  not 
sure  that  we  are  not  in  danger  of  risking  the  stabil- 
ity and  usefulness  of  our  public  system  of  education, 
by  allowing  it  to  get  into  the  higher  regions  of  a 
somewhat  sentimental  theory.  I  am  quite  sure,  that 
in  certain  cases  and  in  certain  ways  the  free  provi- 
sion of  an  almost  compulsory  system  of  higher  edu- 
cation has  worked  and  will  work  harm.     The  child  of 


OF  THB     ^^ 

I7BESIT7)) 


9 


I04  THE   SERMON. 

ordiiiaiy  capacit}-,  passed  on  as  a  matter  of  course 
from  one  school  to  another,  to  learn  all  departments 
of  knowledge,  which  it  is  capable  neither  of  accept- 
ing or  appreciating,  brings  a  charge  upon  the  State 
with  no  adequate  result  or  return.  The  over-education 
of  children  whose  lot  in  life  is  likely  to  lie  among 
what  are  called  the  industrial  pursuits,  sometimes 
unfits  the  character  for  contentment  and  the  cheerful 
undertaking  of  the  duties  of  their  state  of  life.  It 
seems  to  me  that  we  ought  to  guard,  by  the  insist- 
ence of  careful  and  thorough  examination,  against 
the  idea  that  evoy  child  who  has  gone  through  the 
primary  school  must  necessarily  pass  on  to  the  High 
School  and  the  University.  Sifting,  I  believe,  is 
needed,  not  for  the  first  entrance  into  any,  but  for 
every  exit  from  every  grade  of  our  schools.  Other- 
wise we  are  wasting  time  and  money  and  educating 
people  into  unfitness  for  their  work  in  life,  and  dis- 
content with  their  position.  But  I  am  very  clear, 
that  with  the  broad  and  splendid  opportunities  that 
open  in  a  country  like  ours,  for  everybod3%  no  matter 
where  he  begins,  it  must  be  true  that  ever}^  child  who 
can  receive  and  use  it,  ought  to  have  the  opportunit}^ 
of  receiving  from  the  State  the  very  highest  and 
completest  education  that  can  be  given.  And  there- 
fore not  only  this  University  here,  and  the  High 
School  everj^where,  but  where  there  is  not  time  for 
these  the  system  which  the  Regents  have  so  warnil}' 
endorsed,  of  what  is  miscalled  "  university  exten- 
sion," is  the  highest  wisdom  for  the  State  of  New 


BISHOP    DOANE  S   SERMON.  I05 

York  and  for  tlie  great  Republic  in  which  she  holds 
so  honorable  a  place.  Let  us  have  no  uncertain 
mind,  and  speak  with  no  uncertain  voice,  about  the 
first  principle,  that  the  State  must  for  its  own  preser- 
vation reclaim  and  rescue  every  child  from  igno- 
rance; and  open  to  every  citizen  every  opportunity  for 
learning  which  he  shall  prove  himself  able  to 
receive. 

And  so  I  pass  to  consider  the  question  of  the 
duties  of  Christian  citizens  to  a  Christian  State. 
With  all  my  heart  I  thank  God,  that,  by  the  very 
essential  principles  of  the  organization  of  this  gov- 
ernment, there  is  no  possible  complication  between 
Church  and  State.  I  should  be  as  sorry  to  see  the 
Church  established  here,  as  I  should  be  sorry,  for  the 
sake  of  the  State  of  Old  England,  to  see  the  Church 
dis-established  there.  But  while  we  rejoice  in  the 
entire  freedom  from  all  state  control  in  ecclesiastical 
matters,  and  while  we  are  bound  to  repudiate,  come 
from  what  quarter  it  will,  any  attempt  at  ecclesiasti- 
cal interference  in  state  matters,  I  do  not  think  I 
need  be  at  any  pains  to  argue  the  position,  that  the 
State  in  America  is  Christian.  In  the  first  place, 
Christianity  is  only  the  other  and  higher  name  for 
civilization.  Even  the  mere  dreams  of  Christ  among 
the  higher  heathen  of  the  old  time,  and  the  clear 
prophecy  of  him  among  the  Hebrew  people,  were  all 
that  gave  its  tinge  and  tone  to  even  the  imperfect 
civilization  of  Hebrew,  Roman,  and  Greek.  And 
where  the  nobler,  truer  civilization  is,  it  is  only  the 


Io6  THE    SI'RMON. 

under  side  and  human  name  for  Christianit}-.  It  is 
the  Lord  Christ,  chiiming  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
for  His  own ;  imperfectly,  as  I  believe,  unless  He 
stands  clearly  recognized  and  known,  in  the  familiar 
lineaments  and  outlines  of  the  Catholic  Creed  ;  but 
3^et  plainly  enough  and  powerfully  enough,  wherever 
He  is  known,  or  His  name  is  named  at  all.  He  is  in 
the  midst  of,  and  he  is  the  maker  of  everything  that 
we  value,  of  libert}',  of  society,  of  home-life,  of  the 
dignity  of  womanhood,  of  the  reverence  for  child- 
hood, of  the  care  of  the  sick  and  the  poor,  of  the 
sanctity  of  oaths,  of  the  stabilit}'-  of  government. 
And  the  more  plainly  and  the  more  perfectly  he  is 
known  and  recognized,  the  more  perfect  and  complete 
the  civilization  is. 

Apart  from  this  inherent  principle,  there  are  the 
very  highest  and  wisest  American  authorities  for  the 
statement  that  this  government  is  based  upon  Chris- 
tianit}'.  Chief  Justice  Story  sa3^s  that  "  Christianit}' 
is  part  of  the  common  law,  from  which  it  seeks  the 
sanction  of  its  rights  and  b}'^  which  it  endeavors  to 
regulate  its  doctrine."  And  our  great  constitutional 
interpreter,  Daniel  Webster,  saj-s  ''  there  is  nothing 
we  ma}''  look  for  with  more  certaint}-  than  the  gen- 
eral principle  that  Christianit}^  is  part  of  the  law  of 
the  land."  And  if  civilization  is  Christianity,  if  the 
civitas  is  Christian,  then  it  must  be  that  the  true 
civis,  the  complete  citizen,  must  be  Christian  too. 
To  claim  and  reclaim  for  Him  the  humanity  which 
He  lifted  by  lowering  Himself  to  enter  into  it,  is  the 


BiSHor  doane's  serimox.  107 

supreme  obligation  and  the  splendid  opportunity  of 
every  American.     We  have  been  living  for  five  and 
twenty  years  in  dangerous  times  ;  times  of  enormous 
material  prosperity,  when  the  great  wave  of  recuper- 
ation from  the  disaster  and  distress  of  the  civil  war 
has  risen  to  the  flood  tide,  of  such  accumulation  of 
wealth,  such  absorption  in  the  hot  haste  to  get  rich, 
such  discoveries  in  applied  science,  such  opening  of 
avenues  for  making  money,  as  are  rapidly  leading  us 
to  gross  materialism — to  the  worship  of  the  calf  of 
gold,  to  a  belief  in  the  omnipotent  abilit}^  of  wealth 
to  secure  happiness  and  satisfy  the  whole  nature  of 
man.     It  must  be  that  the  same  elements  are  latent 
and  lurking,  which,  in  the  sad  surprise  of  a  sudden 
call  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  made  armed 
men   leap  like  the   fabled  phalanx   from  the  teeth 
which  Cadmus  sowed.     What  we  need  is  the  call  to 
arms,  the  consciousness  of  truth,  the  summons  to 
defend  the  right.     And  all  these  are  really  sounding 
in  your  ears.     When  you  have  learned  the  lesson, 
that  the  selfish  life  is  the  ignoble  life, — that  every 
talent  hidden  in  a  napkin,  no  matter  how  clean  the 
name  of  the  napkin  may  be,  is  really  soiled  by  being 
buried  in  the  dirt, — you  will  begin  to  look  for  the 
place  and  the  way  in  which  your  life  is  to  be  spent 
for  the  advancement  of  your  fellow-men.     Next  to, 
and  part  of,  the  great  and  ruling  principle  of  the 
love   of  God,  comes,  it   seems   to   me,  the    principle 
which   is   onl}^   its   complement,  that  of   loyalt}^  to 
country.     It  is  quite  unpardonable,  that  because  there 


loS  THE    vSERMON. 

is  no  one  incarnate,  personified,  presentation  of  the 
principle  of  loyalty,  that  we  shonld  lack  it  in  onr 
great  republic.  I  remember  the  thrill,  which  stirred 
me  to  the  depths  of  my  nature,  when,  at  the  opening 
of  the  Imperial  Institute  in  London  last  3^ear,  I 
heard  Her  Alajesty,  the  Queen,  as  she  sat  crownless 
and  undistinguished  except  by  the  extreme  simplicity 
of  dress  from  anybody  in  that  great  multitude,  say 
at  the  end  of  her  speech,  in  a  voice  which  filled  the 
room  and  stirred  the  hearts  of  all  who  were  present,  "  I 
hope  that  the  opening  of  this  Imperial  Institute  will 
advance  the  unit}^  and  the  lo3^alt3^  of  ?)iv  empire."  I 
am  here  to  claim,  that,  b}^  the  very  principles  of  this 
republic,  every  citizen  of  America  has  the  right  not 
only,  but  the  duty,  to  claim  with  an  equal  coiiscious- 
7iess  of  definite  right  that  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica is  Jiis  empire.  The  famous  saying  of  the  great 
mart3^red  President,  that  the  principle  of  America 
was  "a  government  of  the  people,  b}'^  the  people,  for 
the  people,"  means  this,  and  it  means  more  than  this. 
Because  it  means,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  people 
are  to  be  governed  \\\  order  that  the}-  ma}-  be  govern- 
ors. And  '  the  people'  stand  simply  for  the  accumu- 
lation of  individuals  ;  and  if  they  are  to  be  governed 
it  must  be  by  the  attainment  of  self-government  on 
the  part  of  every  separate  one.  The  problem  which 
faces  us  to-day  is  intensely  the  problem  of  the  people, 
because  the  great  dangers  of  the  Republic  grow  out 
of  the  fact  that  we  are  in  that  process,  which  makes 
even     boa-constrictors     sleepy     and     indifferent,    of 


BISHOP   DOANE'S   sermon.  IO9 

attempting  to  digest,  into  the  body  politic,  an  enor- 
mons  mass  of  alien  snbstance.  The  foreign  immigra- 
tion into  America,  which  first  crowds  and  then  con- 
trols onr  cities,  and  in  that  way  by  sheer  brnte  force 
of  numbers  controls  the  country  and  the  towns,  is 
under  onr  existing  conditions  a  perpetual  menace. 
Alien  in  religion,  in  training,  in  habit  of  thought, 
swinging,  under  the  old  pendulum  law,  from  the 
extreme  of  tyranny,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  to 
the  extreme  of  license  in  belief  and  life,  they  are 
nevertheless,  in  man}^  of  the  greatest  cities  of  the 
country,  the  governing  majority  of  the  population. 
I  am  not  a  believer  in  restricted  immigration  ;  and, 
when  it  is  applied  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Chinese 
exclusively,  it  seems  to  me  a  violation  both  of  Chris- 
tian law  and  Christian  duty,  and  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  government.  There  are  far  worse 
elements,  which  our  present  laws  invite  to  enter  our 
Republic,  than  the  "  heathen  Chinese."  And  if  we 
can  establish  a  quarantine  which  will  keep  out  the 
plague-spot,  the  escaped  criminals  and  convicts,  the 
ignorant,  the  idle,  the  vicious,  the  scum  and  outcast 
of  the  world,  we  shall  have  done  a  wise  thing.  But 
the  point,  I  am  sure,  of  chief  protection  and  chief 
importance  is  to  break  down  the  theory  of  the  wis- 
dom of  the  rapidity  of  naturalization.  It  is  a  diffi- 
cult thing  to  make  a  citizen,  and  it  ought  to  take 
more  time.  You  and  I,  native  born,  have  to  wait  for 
one  and  twenty  years  to  attain  an  age  not  only  of 
personal    but  of  national    discretion,  before  we  are 


TIO  THE   SERMON. 

trusted  with  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship.  And 
it  seems  to  me  a  defiance  of  justice  and  of  common 
sense,  to  make  a  brief  residence,  with  a  careless  and 
casual  oath,  a  substitute  for  our  long  years  of  train- 
ing and  our  lifelong  associations  with  the  birthright 
of  our  freedom.  I  should  be  thankful  if  America 
would  once  rise  to  the  fact  that  she  will  welcome  to 
the  abundant  opportunities  of  libert}^  and  of  labour 
all  who  are  disposed  to  come ;  that  she  will  keep 
them  strongly  within  the  control  of  the  constitu- 
tional principles  of  her  government ;  that  she  will 
protect  them  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties  and 
assure  to  them  the  possession  of  their  natural  rights  ; 
but  that  she  will  give  to  them  the  privilege  of  shar- 
ing in  the  administration  of  the  government,  only 
when  they  have  been  long  enough  here  to  have 
unlearned  the  foreign  habits  of  thought  and  life,  and 
have  come  of  age,  have  come  to  an  American  major- 
ity, come  to  be  real  Americans,  in  thought  and  life 
and  feeling  and  affection  and  responsibilit3^  I  can 
not  see  why  twentj'-one  years,  if  it  is  not  too  long  for 
a  native  born  American  to  become  a  full  citizen,  is  an 
hour  too  long  to  convert  a  foreigner  into  an  Ameri- 
can. There  is  a  storj-  told  of  an  election  held  in 
Cincinnati,  at  which  three  foreigners,  a  German,  a 
Scandinavian,  and  a  Dane,  declined  to  allow  a  native 
born  American  citizen  to  vote  because  he  could  not 
produce  his  naturalization  papers.  I  hope  the  time 
is  coming  when  three  American  citizens  will  stand 
at  every  poll,  and,  according  to  law,  forbid  the  votes 


BISHOP   DOANE'S   sermon.  Ill 

of  any  who  are  not  naturalized, — not  by  naturaliza- 
tion papers,  but  by  training  and  steeping  in  the 
atmosphere  of  our  republican  principles.  It  rests 
with  you,  I  am  quite  sure,  young  men,  to  see  to  it 
that  the  whole  thought  of  citizenship  is  illustrated 
and  enforced  in  your  lives. 

I  believe  that  what  we  need  to  learn  more  and 
more  is  a  sense  of  the  dignity  of  labour ;  that  idle- 
ness is  an  ignoble  thing ;  that  work,  so  far  from  be- 
ing part  of  the  curse  and  consequence  of  evil,  was 
the  first  privilege  that  was  given  to  man  when  he 
stood  freshly  created  in  the  image  of  God ;  that  the 
only  leisure  class  in  America,  as  an  American 
woman  once  said,  are  what  we  call  tramps.  There 
are  two  things  to  be  remembered.  In  the  first  place, 
that  there  is  labour  which  leaves  no  mark  of  hard- 
ness on  the  hands  ;  labour  of  brain,  and  heart,  and 
soul ;  labour  of  care  and  anxiousness  and  responsi- 
bility ;  labour  that  comes  often  to  those  who  seem  to 
the  shallow  conception  of  ignorance  to  be  the  lei- 
surely people  in  the  world.  I  mean  the  men  of 
wealth,  upon  whose  judgment  in  the  administration 
of  their  great  possessions  rests  in  large  degree  the 
prosperit}^  and  safety  of  their  fellow  men.  This  late 
financial  crisis  has  brought  to  the  fore  the  fact,  that 
the  bankers  and  business  men  of  America,  weighed 
down  with  the  tremendous  sense  of  the  trusts  they 
are  administering  for  others,  have  had  to  bear  the 
heaviest  brunt  of  the  burden  that  such  crises  impose 
upon  men  ;  and  I  believe  that  you  and  I  have  need  to 


112  THE  SERMON. 

recognize,  with  unreserved  thankfulness  and  with 
great  pride,  how  they  have  come,  many  of  them  with 
loss  of  personal  possessions,  clean  and  unscathed 
from  all  dishonour  or  unfaithfulness  to  trust. 

To  those  of  us  whose  line  of  labour  lies  in  some- 
thing beside  manual  toil,  there  must  come  home  the 
sense  of  the  great  need  of  higher  standards  in  the 
professions.  No  matter  what  the  calling  may  be, 
theology,  law,  medicine,  engineering,  architecture, 
mining,  anything,  the  man  who  enters  it  is  bound  to 
realize  that  if  he  seeks  merely  some  selfish  and  per- 
sonal gain  he  is  degrading  the  profession  which  he 
has  entered ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  help- 
ing and  ennobling  mankind,  advancing  civilization, 
adorning  and  building  up  the  State  if  he  mines  hon- 
estly,— if  he  builds  true  and  honest  houses, — if  he 
argues  his  causes  with  true  deference  to  equity  as  well 
as  to  the  technicalities  of  law, — if  he  avoids  the 
secrecy  and  sham  of  quackery, — if  he  preaches  and 
lives  the  truth.  Set  up  j^our  standards  and  set  them 
high,  and  then  live  up  to  them,  not  for  your  own 
sakes  merely,  but  that  in  this  way  you  ma}'  do  3'our 
dut}^  as  Christian  citizens  in  a  Christian  state. 

Nor,  I  think,  may  we  be  unmindful  of  the  fact 
that  this  same  dignit}^  of  labour  and  this  same  duty 
of  honesty  about  it  needs  to  be  impressed  upon  what 
are  commonly  called  the  industrial  classes.  It  is  one 
of  the  painful  and  anxious  facts  of  our  time,  that  the 
best  bone  and  muscle  hastens  from  the  countr}-  to 
the  city,  and  leaves  fields  untilled  and  farms  deserted. 


BISHOP   DOANE'S   sermon.  II3 

that  it  may  crowd  into  what  is  too  often  the  nn- 
healthy  .stimulus  of  an  anxious  and  uncertain  city 
life.  It  is  part  of  the  honour  of  the  intention  and 
of  the  accomplishment  of  this  University,  that  it 
tends  to  advance  and  elevate  the  dignity  and  impor- 
tance especially  of  agriculture.  While  we  are  bound 
to  insist  that  men  do  work,  whose  implements  are 
others  than  spades  and  ploughs,  we  are  also  bound  to 
insist  that,  since  the  first  man  was  set  in  the  garden 
to  till  it  and  dress  it,  there  is  no  more  honorable 
occupation  than  that  which  sets  itself  to  wring  from 
the  reluctant  earth  harvests  for  the  comfort  of  man- 
kind ;  and  that  there  is  no  greater  opportunity  of 
service  to  America  and  to  the  world,  than  in  the  en- 
largement and  improvement  of  the  crop-bearing  por- 
tions of  our  splendid  inheritance. 

Indeed,  there  is  a  sort  of  sublime  opportunity  of 
restitution  in  the  cultivation  of  the  ground.  The 
groans  and  travail  of  creation  until  now,  the  thorns 
and  briers  which  cumber  and  curse  the  earth,  are  the 
reflection,  on  material  nature,  of  the  sin  of  its  lord. 
What  better  service  can  man  do,  redeemed  him- 
self from  the  curse  by  the  sweat  and  blood  of  the 
second  Adam,  than  to  rescue  and  reclaim  for  gracious 
harvests  the  waste  places  and  the  weedj^  places  of 
the  earth  ?  It  is  our  share  in,  and  our  complement  of 
the  Lord's  redemption  of  the  world. 

And  all  the  while  what  is  to  be  the  aim  and  the 
ambition  of  your  work  ?  Be  careful  of  this,  my 
friends.     There  is  no  more  searching  statement   in 


114  THE   wSKRMON. 

all  the  Master's  utterances  than  this,  "  They  have 
their  reward."  The  people  who  give  alms  to  be  seen 
of  men,  the  people  who  fast  and  pray  with  long  faces 
and  the  repetition  of  long  prayers  where  men  can 
see  them,  and  the  people  who  look  only  to  Him  that 
seeth  in  secret,  of  all  these  it  is  true  "  they  have 
their  reward."  That  is  to  say,  what  a  man  gets  de- 
pends upon  what  he  works  for.  High  standards, 
high  aims,  high  ambitions,  set  these  before  3'ou  from 
the  start.  Money,  if  you  will,  but  not  for  its  mere 
having ;  political  place,  if  you  will,  but  not  for  self- 
seeking ;  literary  reputation,  if  \'ou  will,  but  not  for 
mere  popularity. 

Every  faculty,  every  endowment,  every  attain- 
ment, every  advancement,  to  the  true  man  is  for 
some  further  step  and  for  some  higher  end.  Every- 
thing that  is  gained  is  to  be  used  not  merely  to  gain 
more  of  the  same  kind,  but  to  gain  something  better 
than  it  is  by  the  use  of  it. 

Highest  of  all  aims  is  the  advancement  of  the 
glory  of  God,  the  spreading  of  His  Kingdom  on  the 
earth,  bringing  men  into  obedience  and  allegiance  to 
Him  ;  and  this  is  not  merely  vagueness  and  vapidit}'' 
of  words,  because  God's  highest  glory  is  the  fact 
that  He  seeks  the  happiness  of  the  creatures  whom 
He  has  made ;  and  we  shall  serve  Him  best  and  best 
promote  His  glory  when  we  set  ourselves,  after  the 
pattern  of  His  incarnate  Son,  to  the  service  of  our 
fellow  men. 


BISHOP  doane's  sermon.  115 

The  speech  of  to-da}-  is  naturally  and  necessarily 
set  in  a  more  serious  and  soberer  tone  than  the 
"thoughts  that  breathed"  in  "words  that  burned," 
yesterday  ;  for  the  preacher  has  to  deal  with  deeper 
truths  and  in  more  solemn  ways.  Yesterday  was  the 
da}^  of  recollections.  This  is  the  day  of  resolutions. 
And  what  recollections  they  were, — of  a  great  faith, 
a  noble  purpose,  an  irresistible  persistence,  an  un- 
conquerable energ}^,  an  inextinguishable  hope  ;  of 
such  a  growth  as  staggers  us,  in  even  that  fractional 
part  of  results  which  figures  can  compute,  till  an 
income  of  more  than  half  a  million  of  dollars  enables 
one  hundred  and  fifty  scholars  to  teach  two  thousand 
young  men,  in  noble  buildings  furnished  with  the 
most  perfect  appliances  that  gracious  gifts  and  wise 
administration  can  secure ;  recollections  of  names 
that  neither  patriotism  nor  grateful  affection  will  let 
die,  Cornell  and  Sage,  Sibley  and  McGraw,  White 
and  Goldwin  Smi-th  and  Adams,  and,  not  least, 
Ostrander,  whose  name  lives  in  the  avenue  of  his 
elms  ;  men  who  have  had  the  rare  power  not  only  to 
found,  but  to  build  on  and  add  to  other  men's  founda- 
tions, content  to  let  the  whole  sum  of  their  service 
and  spending  gather  about  the  name  of  the  Founder  ; 
of  whom  it  is  true,  that  he  is  not  less  honoured  in 
the  University  that  he  founded,  than  in  the  friends 
he  found  ;  recollections  not  only  of  foundation  and 
accumulation  but  of  the  administration  of  a  great 
trust  with  that  splendid  unselfishness  which  watches 
and  cares  for  capital  from  which  no  personal  benefit 


Il6  THE   SERMON. 

accrues,  in  the  spirit  that  exceeds  the  law,  b}'  loving 
one's  neighbour  bcllcr  than  one's  self. 

These  are  the  recollections  which  are  3'our  inher- 
itance, young  men,  to-day.    Rcspondete  natal i bus  ! 

What  shall  be  done  with  them  ?  They  are  too 
precious  to  be  treated  as  mere  mummied  memories 
of  a  dead  past.  They  are  too  alive  with  love  and 
zeal  and  energy,  to  be  arranged  like  fossils  on  an 
archaeological  shelf.  They  are  too  enduring  to  evap- 
orate in  the  echoes  of  3^our  College  Song : 

"  Hail  !  all  hail,  Cornell  !" 

The  noblest  past  has  no  value  but  as  it  passes 
through  the  smelting  of  an  eager  present,  into  the 
coinage  of  a  finer  future.  Birthrights  are  worse 
than  nothing  if  they  do  not  become  the  life-rights  of 
their  inheritor. 

Take,  then,  the  great  recollections  of  this  silver 
wedding  of  a  good  name  with  a  good  cause,  and  turn 
them  into  the  stern  resolves :  to  make  3''our  lives  as 
theirs  were,  who  have  been  making  your  life  here, 
earnest  and  helpful,  strong  in  fiiith  and  hope  and 
love,  unselfish  and  true  and  real, 

' '  Not  afraid  to  dare  and  do, 
And  arrayed  in  every  fight 
On  the  battle  side  of  right 
With  the  knowledge  that  is  victory  and  power," — 

"  the    knowledge    of   the  only   true   God  and  Jesus 

Christ  whom  He  has  sent  ";    for  this  is  life  eternal. 


THE   SERVICE   AT   BARNES    HALL.  II7 

On  Sunda}'  evening,  at  Barnes  Hall,  was  held  the  com- 
niemoratory  sen-ice  of  the  Cornell  University  Christian  Asso- 
ciation. All  its  exercises  took  place  as  announced  ;  and  with 
this  service  the  celebration  of  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of 
the  opening  of  Cornell  University  was  at  an  end. 


VIEWS  OF 

CORNELL  UNIVERSITY 

IN  ITS 

FIRST  QUARTER-CENTURY 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  IN   1868 


THE    FOUNDER    AND    THE    ORIGINAL    FACULTY 


These  pliotographs  of  the  Founder  and  the  original  Facult>- 
of  Cornell  I'niversity  were  taken  (with  the  exception  of  those 
forming  the  topmost  row  in  tlie  picture)  by  Purdy  and  Frear 
at  Ithaca,  in  the  first  year  of  the  University,  and  were  thus 
grouped  by  them.  The  photograph  of  Professor  Agassiz  used 
in  the  group  was  from  a  painting,  and  is  here  replaced  by  one 
nure  satisfactory. 

The  five  portraits  in  the  upper  row  of  the  present  picture 
were  for  various  reasons  lacking  to  the  group,  and  are  now  sup- 
plied from  other  contemporary  photographs.  With  this  addi- 
tion the  roll  of  the  resident  Faculty  is  complete  ;  and.  of  the 
non-residents,  Agassiz,  Curtis,  Dwight,  Gould,  and  Lowell 
are  here. 

The  numbers  of  the  following  key  correspond  to  those  of 
the  plate  : 

I.     PvZKA    C0KX1-",IJ..  2.     A.NDKICW     D.    WlIITK. 

3-  Thkodor]-:  W.   Dwicht.    i6.   Homhk  B.  vSi'K.\f,uE. 

4.  WlI.LAKI)    FiSKE.  17.    ZlIiA    II.     POTTKK. 

5.  KvAN  \V.   Evans.  iS.  John  L.   Morris. 

6.  \Viij.ia:\i  C.  Cleveland.  19.  William   I).   Wil.son. 

7.  Bi'RT  G.  Wilder.  20.  William  C.    Rlssel. 

8.  Joseph  H.  Whittli-:sev.  21.   Goldwin  Smith. 

9.  Lewis  Spauldinc.  22.  James  Russell  Lowell. 

10.  James  Law.  23.  George  William  Cirtis. 

11.  Eli  W.   Blake.  24.  James  M.   Crafts. 

12.  Chas.  Fred  H.\rtt.  25.  T.   P"rei)i:rick  Cr.vne. 

13.  Loi'is  Agassiz.  26.   Alhicrt  X.   Pri-:ntiss. 

14.  George  C.  C.vldwivll.  27.  Alhi-:rt  S.  Wheeler. 

15.  J.\Mi:s  M()RG.\N  Hart.  2S.  John  Stanton  Gould. 


■.^'  -^*\j^u£^^^r 


s- 


^^^ 


OF  THF. 


roHlVBE-SITT- 


ow 


'4llT^ 


CORNELL  UXIVERSITY  IN   i86S 


THE    I'XIVERSITV    P'RO:\I    THE    VALLEY 


The  view  is  from  the  cupoki  of  the  CliiiLon  House,  look- 
ing toward  East  Hill.  On  the  cre.st  of  the  hill,  at  the  left-hand 
upper  corner  of  the  picture,  may  be  seen  Morrill  Hall  (then 
called  "vSouth  I'niversity"),  the  one  building  completed.  Just 
to  the  right  of  it  the  tempnrar\-  shelter  of  the  chinie  is  nearh- 
hidden  by  the  trees.  Near  the  right-hand  upper  corner  aj^pears 
Cascadilla  Place,  built  for  a  watercure  establishment,  i)ut 
given  to  the  university  at  its  opening  and  of  the  utmost  ser- 
vice in  its  early  years.  To  the  right  of  this,  in  the  background, 
the  "Giles  Place"  (now  Cascadilla  Cottage,  the  residence  of 
Profe.s.sor  Corson).  On  the  left  of  the  picture,  beyond  Casca- 
dilla gorge,  the  village  burying-ground  is  .seen,  and,  cro.ssing 
it,  the  footpath,  then  as  ever  since  the  favorite  short-cut  to 
the  Cam])us. 


^^^  OP  THR        >e^ 

[UIfI7BR3IT7l 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  IN   1868 


THE    ENTRANCE    TO    THE    CAMPUS 
SOUTH    UNIVERSITY    BUILDING    (MORRILL    HALL) 


The  first  bridge  over  Cascadilla  gorge,  at  the  entrance  to 
tlie  Campus.  It  was  a  \Vi;oden  structure,  crossing  at  tlie  same 
point  as  the  present  bridge,  Ijut  much  nearer  tlie  stream. 


"South  Uni\xrsit>"'  (now  Morrill  Hall),  as  .set n  iVom  the 
centre  of  the  Campus,  looking  southwest.  The  shed-like 
structure  projecting  from  its  northern  end  is  the  power-house 
.sheltering  the  engine  which  ran  the  University  printing-press. 
At  the  left  of  the  picture  appears  the  temporary  tower  for  the 
chime.  In  the  foreground,  just  at  the  right  of  the  embank- 
ment,  may  be  .seen  a  spring  much  used  by  the  sludents.  The 
white  object  acnvss  the  road  Iroin  Morrill  Hall  is  a  trough  for 
the  watering  f)f  horses. 


^• 


%. 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY   IN  1872 


THE    CAMPUS,     LOOKING    NORTH 


This  view  is  trom  near  the  site  of  the  present  Boarchnan 
Hall  (the  school  of  law).  It  was  taken  in  early  May  of  1S72, 
and  was  distribnted  ])y  the  Cornell  Era  as  a  j^ift  to  i's  sub- 
scribers. Each  of  the  twelve  negatives  taken  had  a  differ- 
ent group  of  students  in  the  foreground.  Morrill  Hall  (then 
"South  University"),  McGraw  Hall,  and  White  Hall  (then 
"North  University'")  appear  at  the  left,  Sibley  College  in  the 
background,  .and  at  the  right  the  temporary  wooden  building 
used  as  a  chemical  laboratory  and  familiarly  known  for  years 
as  the  "Old  Lab."  vSundr\-  farm  buildings  of  the  Unixx-rsity 
mav  be  seen  behind. 


'•  -^i*^ 


[UHIVERSITT] 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  IN    1878 


THE    CAMPUS,    LOOKING    NORTH 
THE    CAMPUS,    LOOKING    SOUTHWE.ST 


These  two  views,  taken  in  the  summer  of  1878  from  Sage 
College,  the  one  looking  north,  the  other  southwest,  show  all 
tile  buildings  of  the  Campus  proper  except  Sage  College  itself. 

In  the  upper  view  appear  in  the  foreground  Sage  Chapel 
and  the  house  of  Professor  Babcock  ;  at  tlie  left,  ])ehind,  Mor- 
rill (South  University),  McGraw,  and  White  ( X(jrth  Univer- 
sitjO.  with  the  lake  in  the  distance  ;  in  the  centre,  half-hidden 
by  the  trees,  Sibley  College  ;  and,  at  the  right,  the  Old  Lal> 
oratory  with  the  farm  buildings  in  tlie  background. 

In  the  lower  view  are  seen  the  residences  of  Professors 
Crane.  Shackford,  and  Morris,  and,  still  further  to  the  left,  the 
barn-like  old  Gynniasium,  owned  by  tlie  students.  Beyond 
may  be  dimly  made  out  Ithaca  in  its  valle\-  with  tlic  surround- 
inw;  hills. 


^'<^^   OP  THB     ^- 

;UFI7BRSIT7l 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  IN   1887 


THE    CAMPUS,    LOOKING    NORTH 


Again  a  view  from  Sage  College.  In  addition  to  the  older 
buildings,  a  new  physical  laboratory  fnow  Franklin  Hall)  looms 
up  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the  Campus,  in  the  angle  be- 
tween White  and  Sibley  ;  and  over  the  top  of  the  "Old  Lab" 
(become  the  Civil  Engineering  Building)  are  visible  the  roofs 
and  tall  chimney  of  the  additions  to  Sibley  College.  The 
strange  mast  seen  over  the  western  gable  of  Sage  Chapel  is  the 
pole  of  the  University's  weather  signal  station.  Beyond  it.  on 
the  brow  of  the  hill,  overlooking  the  lake,  appears  the  McGraw- 
Fiske  mansion.  In  the  inunediate  foreground,  at  the  left.  ma> 
be  .seen  preparations  for  the  erection  of  Barnes  Hall. 


CORNELL    UNIVERSITY    IN    1893 


THE    CAMPUS,    LOOKING     NORTH 


The  view  is  again  from  Sage  College,  but  w  ith  striking 
changes.  Beyond  Sage  Chapel,  at  the  lel't,  the  new  l'ni\-ersity 
Library,  with  its  bell-tower  ;  at  the  right,  the  new  law  build- 
ing (Boardnian  Hall).  In  the  background,  over  the  roofs  of 
McGravv  and  at  its  left  is  seen  the  chemical  laboratory  (Mor.se 
Hall).  Sibley  College,  in  the  centre,  has  doubled  its  original 
size,  and  is  flanked  by  le.s.ser  buildings,  its  workshops.  The 
old  laboratory  has  disappeared,  and  looking  pa.st  its  site  one 
.sees  instead  the  new  college  of  Architecture  and  Civil  Engineer- 
ing (Lincoln  Hall). 


ITJiriVBIlSITT] 


CORNELL  UNIVERSITY  IN  1893 


THE    CAMPUS,    LOOKIN'G    SOUTH 


Looking  south  from  Sage  Chapel.  At  the  left,  Sage  Col- 
lege, the  residence  of  the  women  of  the  Universitw  In  tlie 
foreground,  Barnes  Hall,  the  home  of  the  University  Christian 
Association.  At  the  right,  further  l)ack,  the  combined  Gym- 
nasium and  Armor\-,  flying  its  flag.  Over  the  roofs  of  Barnes 
Hall  and  Sage  College  may  be  .seen  the  homes  of  professors. 
The  tall  building  in  the  di.stance,  at  the  left  of  the  Armor}-,  is 
that  of  the  Ca.scadilla  School. 


^^y^^    OF  THE      ^^ 

[USIVEE3IT7; 


CORNEIvL    UNIVERSITY    IN    1893 


SAGE   COLLEGE 

BARNES    HALL 

THE    ARMORY    (THE    GYMNASIUM) 


Sa-re  Co11c"j:c,  from  tlic  southwest. 


Barnes  Hall,  from  the  northwest.      Sage  College  and  the 
Armorv  in  the  l)ackgr(mn(l. 


The  ArmorN'  (the  G\-mnasium  >  from  the  northwest. 


CORNELL   UNIVERSITY   IN    1893 


THE    UNIVERSITY    LIBRARY 


The  University  Library,  troiii  the  Campus,  locking  suulli- 
\vest.      At  the  left,  its  bell-t(nver  for  the  chime  and  cli;c-k. 


^-^^^   OP  THR^^v^ 

:UNI7ER3IT 


OJr 


^rpoR^"^ 


POSTSCRIPT. 


(^From  the  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  April  24,  1894.) 

The  President  of  the  University  presented  a 
final  proof  of  the  publication  reporting  the  Proceed- 
ings and  Addresses  at  the  Qnarter-Centnry  Celebra- 
tion, and  offered  the  following  resolntions,  which 
were  unanimously  adopted  : 

Resolved^  That  the  cordial  thanks  of  the  Board 
be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  tendered  to  Professor 
George  L.  Burr  for  the  labor,  care,  and  taste  with 
which,  in  fulfillment  of  the  editorial  task  laid  upon 
him  by  the  Board,  he  has  accomplished  the  prepara- 
tion and  illustration  of  the  volume  containing  the 
Proceedings  and  Addresses  at  the  Twenty-Fifth 
Anniversary  of  the  Opening  of  Cornell  University. 

Further  Resolved^  That  Professor  Burr  be 
directed  to  publish  this  minute  as  a  postscript  to 
the    volume. 


^^  OP  THB*^ 


[TJHI7EES^rr] 


YD   IA?^Q 


Oo  r 


1X3 /S^^ 


11 


